HK and Cult Film
News
By Porfle
January 5, 2018
With big-budget, high-profile westerns coming out so few
and far between these days--and even those seldom coming up to snuff--it's up
to indy filmmakers to take up the slack and give us western fans some of that
good old sagebrush entertainment.
The results aren't always stellar, but, as in the case of
THE BOUNTY KILLER (Indican Pictures, 2018), they're often made with an
enthusiasm for the genre that helps to smooth over any deficiencies.
It helps that this tale of a bounty killer hired to
recover a woman kidnapped on her wedding day and held for ransom is visually
splendid, shot in Spain on some terrific standing sets amidst great desert locations
(seen in Sergio Leone's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) and using drone cameras
to give us plenty of sweeping aerial shots as well.
Crispian Belfrage (WEST OF THUNDER) plays the bounty
killer with no name, riding into a web of political corruption that includes
the town's mayor and low-life sheriff, plus all their various trigger-happy
toadies, in a scheme to line their pockets with ill-gotten cash.
Belfrage's anti-hero, who's addicted to smoking opium and
guzzling laudenum to forget his Civil War traumas, is somewhat of a
cypher--we're never really sure how emotionally or morally invested he is in
his mission, sometimes showing signs of empathy but also appearing steely and
coldblooded as well.
The mayor's henchmen, the town's lawless lawmen, and the
actual kidnappers, led by the repellent Cavendish (Ethan McDowell), are all of
the type whose brains are way less developed than their gun hands.
Only their superior numbers and misuse of authority give
them an advantage over Bounty Killer, who, it turns out, tends to be a bit
careless himself at times (making him more human than the usual Leone
superman).
When they have the occasional shootout, as in the two
main set pieces that conclude the film, it's a messy affair devoid of
sharpshooting or fancy maneuvers--just a lot of bullets, blood, and death.
Much of the film is slow and introspective, perhaps too
much so for those looking for a fast-moving shoot-em-up. Bounty Killer spends a lot of time
languishing in an opium stupor haunted by Civil War flashbacks (it appears as
though the filmmakers enlisted a re-enactment group for these), and the story
generally takes its own sweet time getting where it's going.
Performances range from average to good, with Daniel
Jordan a standout as medicine show hawker Dr. Rafferty. Belfrage does his best with a role that
really isn't sufficiently fleshed-out, while the rest of the gunmen provide
adequate villainy so that we enjoy seeing them get theirs.
THE BOUNTY KILLER isn't one of the best westerns you'll
ever see, but it's fun entertainment to keep western fans occupied until one of
those rare great ones comes along. And
it's nice to see someone like director and co-writer Chip Baker (THE PRICE OF
DEATH, SIX BULLETS TO HELL) who loves the genre enough to keep carrying that
torch.
TECH SPECS
Runtime: 86 min
Format: 1:78 HD
Sound: Dolby Digital
Country: USA
Language: English
Website: www.IndicanPictures.com
Genre: Western, Action
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