John Wayne delivers one of the most layered and challenging performances of his career. John Ford’s The Searchers is often cited as one of the most important Westerns in cinematic history. After finally sitting down to watch it this summer, I now understand why. Even with limited prior exposure toContinue Reading
Fans of gun-play and grit should know that this is a movie that runs more on character development than your standard shoot ’em up. At the rate Nicolas Cage churns out movies, it’s surprising to think that he’s never been in a Western before. But here we are in 2023Continue Reading
Each performance — especially those of Pearce and Carlyle — shows that the actors have wholeheartedly bought in to the story. 1999’s Ravenous is a strange little movie. It’s essentially a cannibal western that features character actors like Guy Pearce (Memento) and Robert Carlyle (The Full Monty.) It’s hard toContinue Reading
It’s difficult to find much fault with a film containing such likable performances. The Frisco Kid tells the story of Avram Belinski, a Polish rabbi dispatched to a synagogue in San Francisco. He encounters a series of misadventures shortly after his boat lands in Philadelphia. After he loses his moneyContinue Reading
Despite its duplicitous cover art, the movie tells an unusual story that held my interest. Royce Tullis (Clint James) and his gang are in the process of hunting down the jurors that sent his brother to the gallows. As the movie opens, they approach the homestead of the last jurorContinue Reading
It’s a non-apologetic B-level Western that delivers exactly what its intended audience will expect from it: shoot-outs, bloody violence, a bit of nudity, and a lot of slow motion. Robert Bronzi (aka Robert Kovacs) has made a career capitalizing on his resemblance to Charles Bronson. In 2018, he appeared inContinue Reading
While the plot is undeniably moronic, the whiplash pacing and Josh Brolin’s tongue-in-cheek performance make it bearable. Word-of-mouth and a frigid box-office reception gave me an obvious clue that 2010’s Jonah Hex should be a terrible movie. Based on DC Comics’ long-running western series and featuring an excellent cast andContinue Reading