BEFORE: Since yesterday's film featured a gunslinger in a pivotal role (though the main gunfight happened off camera, but that's another story...) I'm following it with a movie that's all about gunfights. Linking from "Cat Ballou", Lee Marvin was also in a film called "Prime Cut" with Gene Hackman (last seen in "Hoosiers").
I finally recorded a film set in Australia, so the complete itinerary for the Movie World Tour is now locked. I was willing to go ahead with it even though it only passed through 5 continents, but now it will pass through 6. I can't wait to get started. Tonight's film didn't make it into the tour, because the location of the town was not given - it takes place in a basic, indistinct, unnamed Western town.
THE PLOT: A female avenger returns to western town owned by a ruthless gunslinger hosting an elimination tournament.
AFTER: The problem with Western movies, as I see it, particularly with the more modern ones, is that they're treated as genre films. By that I mean there are certain elements that people expect to see in them, so the filmmakers try to put all those elements in there, and what you end up with is a film that has the same stereotypical characters and plot devices as the last Western, and the one before that. (case in point, a noose showed up in tonight's film - that's 6 out of the last 7 films!) Once in a while someone steps outside the box and makes a film like, say, "Back to the Future III", which still touches on many of those tropes but finds a way to put its own spin on things.
That feels like what someone was trying to do with this film - by treating gunslinging like it's a sport, by showing something akin to the U.S. Open of gunfighting, in a single-elimination format. And when I say "elimination", I mean just that - the players are eliminated. Permanently. I'm fairly sure that people in the Old West resorted to gunplay as a last resort, and even then, it was all random and chaotic. The scenario where everyone in town hides, and two gunmen face off in a desolate street, each drawing their guns simultaneously in a true test of speed and skill - probably never went down like that, except in the movies.
In the movies, the hero wears white and the villains wear black, the truth and honesty of the sheriff gives him the super-drawing speed he needs to take down the bad guy, or even to shoot the gun right out of his hand. OK, this film isn't that cornball, but it hedges on it. There's no mistaking which characters we're supposed to root for, the ones whose causes are just, or who oppose violence for violence's sake.
Hackman plays the stereotypical Western-movie "rich guy", which means he owns half of the town (and he's probably working on getting the other half to sell to the railroads after they invent trains) but the original twist is, in addition to sponsoring the tournament, he's also a player. And evidently the golden rule is that he who has the gold makes the rules - so naturally he wins every year.
NITPICK POINT #1: If the tournament is rigged by the rich guy, and he wins time and time again, presumably creating a pile of competitors' bodies each year - what's the motivation for others to enter the contest again? Oh, yeah, a pile of money, but what good is that when you're too dead to spend it?
NITPICK POINT #2: The rules of the gunfight state that the one who's less injured (or less dead) wins the fight. But if these truly are the top 8, or 12, or 16 gunfighters in the country, then there's probably a very small difference in their skill levels. I could easily imagine a scenario where BOTH shooters kill or mortally wound each other. But I guess the makers of this movie didn't. Probably because having a clear winner in each fight creates a more distinct story - but that means that the seams of the script are showing. The results the screenplay needed determined the story, instead of the other way around.
NITPICK POINT #3: If our heroine enters the tournament just to get revenge on its sponsor, she could have shot him at ANY TIME, like right after a match with another opponent, where he served as referee. You've got the gun, the bullets, and he's like RIGHT THERE. Nope, she follows the rules of the tournament - well, which is it? Is she hell-bent on revenge, or not?
Although wildly ridiculous, the film was still entertaining, and that's what gives it a higher rating on my scale than "Cat Ballou", though connoisseurs of classic cinema may disagree. As always, this is my scale and your mileage may vary.
Also starring Sharon Stone (last seen in "Total Recall"), Russell Crowe (last seen in "Robin Hood"), Leonardo DiCaprio (last seen in "Inception"), Pat Hingle (last seen in "Baby Boom"), with cameos from Keith David (last seen in "Reality Bites"), Lance Henriksen (last seen in "The Slammin' Salmon"), Gary Sinise (last seen in "Mission to Mars").
RATING: 6 out of 10 dolly zooms
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