Reviews

I'm quite well read on the First World (Great) War and I enjoyed these three episodes a great deal. Although I was not there (on the battlefield) myself, the three episodes smacked of reality. They nicely drew on the experiences of individual soldiers (Paddy Kennedy, for example, is a major figure in Martin Middlebrook's classic work The First Day on the Somme and his story can found in print there) and the somewhat larger military picture was provided with some very nice computer graphics that added to the information but did not misrepresent or distort the real story. Later history (events since 1918) has obscured some things from the current view, but this war was a REALLY BIG DEAL for Great Britain and it and the subsequent events (political and otherwise) are in important ways responsible for how the Edwardian (Victorian) UK became the UK of today.

Full Disclosure: I'm a 60 something male who generally likes Westerns (with John Wayne, James Garner, Clint Eastwood, ...), the Dirty Harry movies, Police dramas, and so on . . . Normally this is not my type of movie. But I really enjoyed this modern retelling of the Cinderella story when I watched it with my wife. It's quite moving with some strong acting by the actors playing the three main teenage characters: Indy, Bryant, and Max. Obviously the evil aunt and uncle are caricatures, but that's a bit of a vehicle to help move the story along. And it's more than just the Cinderella tale, it's also very much about being a teenager and the trials kids face during those years.

If you're like me (or not like me?), I would say give it a try. You may very well be surprised by this little gem.

This movie is a satire of a massive film genre, American Western movies, and the Old West itself. It mocks and makes ridiculous all the mainstays of those films, which, like all movies, are not historically accurate, and it also has fun with quite a few realistic aspects of life on the frontier itself.

For example, in recorded history there are VERY, VERY few instances of anyone fanning a gun (pulling back the hammer repeatedly by running his opposite hand across the top of it), because it made your shots go wild and it was an excellent way to get yourself killed. Similarly, two gunmen meeting at a prearranged time (high noon?) in the middle of the street, much less counting to three or one of them letting the other man draw first, are also Hollywood fantasies, as are conversations between the two combatants, as seemingly happened more and more over time in movies starting with the Psychological Westerns of the 1950s.

Just like in Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal," which I think most of us were forced to read in high school and we could not get what the guy was trying to say, this movie is not to be taken on face value. The intent is to have a good laugh and to poke fun at certain things about the Old West and its depiction in movies.

Yet, there is apparently a reverence in this movie for some of the conventions of classic Westerns. Actor Seth McFarlane, who plays a sheepherder in this movie, is named Stark. Perhaps this is a thinly veiled reference to the main character, Joe Starrett, in the Western classic movie "Shane"--a peaceful farmer who is threatened by the local cattle baron.

Also, did anyone notice that in the center of the main street in the town this movie is set in, there is a large old tree stump? That's equivalent to having a twenty foot high pile of massive stones in the middle of a three lane modern highway. It shouldn't be there for all practical purposes.

So why did McFarlane and the other writers put it there? Because such a tree stump is part of a prominent scene in both "Shane" and, if I recall correctly, the more recent classic "Pale Rider" (starring Clint Eastwood). In both cases there is a scene where the threatened farmer/miner bonds with the gunfighter who is there to help him (Alan Ladd as Shane or Clint Eastwood in "Pale Rider") by the pair laboriously chopping out a large old tree stump on his land with axes, when it would have been so much easier to blow it up.

Finally, I wonder if some of the stars of this movie were specifically chosen with satire in mind. Neeson and Theron are both foreign born, but are in an American western? And Neil Patrick Harris is the new boyfriend of McFarlane's lost love Louise?

A bloody, brutal Western where the action never stops.

First, the Bad (let's get that out of the way). Like all Westerns, the plot has its flaws -- with an Indian war party off the reservation they would not have sent a shipment of ammunition through a narrow canyon guarded by only one squad of green recruits on unbroken/partly saddle broken horses. But so what? In the classic Western Stagecoach the Indians would have shot the horses pulling the stage and then finished off the passengers as opposed to shooting at the people in the coach. Also, Sidney Poitier's silver vest remains immaculate throughout the long desert journey and several pitched battles.

However, the movie moves so fast that you never really have time to stop and remind yourself that you have to "suspend disbelief" to watch it.

Next, the Good. On one level, it's a classic cavalry vs. Indians story. But viewed through a different lens than in earlier Westerns; the Indians are shown with some perspective, if not total sympathy, which probably makes this one of the first Westerns to get beyond a one dimensional view of them. There are a variety of interesting subplots which flesh out the major characters and keep things twisting, turning, and moving along between the combat scenes. In fact, almost every one of the characters is angry about something, creating lots of tension between them. James Garner's character is looking for the men who raped and killed his (Indian) wife, Dennis Weaver's Will Grange is angry about almost everything, including that his wife was held captive by the Indians, Sidney Poitier's Toller (now a civilian) is mad that circumstances forced him to accompany the cavalry on this mission ....

Garner and Poitier give excellent performances and the other actors rise to the occasion, helping us forget that they are, in fact, Scottish or Danish.

At the end of the movie the various subplots are tied up and the issues are resolved with (in one case) a very surprising twist.

On top of that, you have a wonderful (almost superb, for this movie) Neal Hefti score, which always seems to correctly reflect the mood of the scene. It fits the movie even better because it makes heavy use of Western/military instruments: guitars, horns, drums, ....

Finally, the Ugly. There are some fairly graphic scenes here (although not exactly like in the Wild Bunch or Saving Private Ryan). The Apaches could torture with the best of them and some of that appears in this movie, although we're spared the close-ups.

All in all, I must say that this is one of my long time favorites. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!!