This movie was, despite the claims of many others, an excellent western. I am not sure how people define how a western should be, but I look back to the horse opera pulp fiction of the former century.
This movie had a hero town between his want for revenge and moral convictions bestowed upon him with his father's dying words and a psychotic villain whose greed motivates him to acts of unspeakable horror.
This film is surely vilified by the double standard held by fans of film today. It is not high-budget enough to be considered as relevant as any film that gets a theatrical release and it is not low-budget enough to get passed off as camp. If this movie were made thirty years ago and starred Clint Eastwood, it would be a classic.
There has not been a villain in a western so good as this films since Gene Hackman in Unforgiven.
This movie is Pulp, it is not drama, neither is it one of the pointless morality lessons written by Cormac McCarthy.
There is a place in the middle between the highly stylized Spaghetti Westerns and the dramatic The Unforgiven. This movie belongs on that line.
The bottom line: If you are a fan of Westerns, particularly in novel format, you will like this film. If you are a fan of films and do not like it when a movie sticks to the formula of its genre, then you should probably look elsewhere.
This movie is not going to change your life; it does however entertain.
This movie had a hero town between his want for revenge and moral convictions bestowed upon him with his father's dying words and a psychotic villain whose greed motivates him to acts of unspeakable horror.
This film is surely vilified by the double standard held by fans of film today. It is not high-budget enough to be considered as relevant as any film that gets a theatrical release and it is not low-budget enough to get passed off as camp. If this movie were made thirty years ago and starred Clint Eastwood, it would be a classic.
There has not been a villain in a western so good as this films since Gene Hackman in Unforgiven.
This movie is Pulp, it is not drama, neither is it one of the pointless morality lessons written by Cormac McCarthy.
There is a place in the middle between the highly stylized Spaghetti Westerns and the dramatic The Unforgiven. This movie belongs on that line.
The bottom line: If you are a fan of Westerns, particularly in novel format, you will like this film. If you are a fan of films and do not like it when a movie sticks to the formula of its genre, then you should probably look elsewhere.
This movie is not going to change your life; it does however entertain.