IMDb #111 Review: Unforgiven (1992)

Source: Wikipedia

The Wild West wasn't so wild to live in. It wasn't so much rugged loners taming a harsh land, as it was harsh land punishing the angry violent shitheads who couldn't survive anyplace else. And thus Clint Eastwood, old and charmingly crotchety, sets out to demolish the very myths he embodied in his youth.

For reasons unexplained by the introductory text scroll, a young lady marries a thief. He becomes a shitty farmer, until smallpox reduces his wife to a a mound of inanimate chemicals. Alone, he can't manage his hogs, let alone his motherless children.

Elsewhere in Wyoming, bad guys (who claim they aren't bad guys) rape and mutilate a prostitute. Without their pimp knowing, the ladies-of-the-night save up to put up a $1000 bounty on the bastards. This provokes the ire of the townsmen, who want to avoid the sort of ruffians attracted to the bounty on the other ruffians.

The prior category of ruffians include a crack-shot Englishman. He travels with his nebbish biographer and preaches monarchy to provincial dunderheads. Then the little town's petty sheriff (and shitty carpenter) kicks the shit out of the old man and provides the bland truth behind the embellished biography. This same sheriff strictly enforces the town's no-gun policy -- using guns, of course.

In the only predictable part of this anti-western, the farmer abandons retirement to hunt the bounty. He rides out with a young man who over-inflates his personal legend (whereas the old man downplays his).

It's an ugly, grungy story, grounded in reality and fertilized with pain. Guns make smoke; weapons fire and misfire. Men and women die slow and agonizing deaths, pathetically, sometimes in the outhouse. Riding out in the rain results in potentially fatal fevers. Self-styled heroes fight dirty, whereas braggarts run screaming at the first sign of danger. And killing messes people up for life -- "It takes all a man is, all he'll ever be." For both victim and perpetrator.

131 minutes.

IMDB #173 Review: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Source: Wikipedia

As the Old West declines in mysticism, the two titular gentleman-outlaws bugger off to South America. They find it's everything and nothing like what they expected. Despite the rampant poverty, there are banks everywhere, practically begging for robbery. But, just like America, the local government deploys punitive countermeasures, which occasionally includes guns.

Wait -- backtrack. Butch Cassidy is the happy-go-lucky rogue who (arguably) leads the Hole in the Wall Gang. Remarkably less childlike is the grim Sundance Kid, his crack shot sidekick and faithful mustache-wearer. These best buds hold up trains, blow up safes, and squabble amiably over the same pretty lady. (Cue romantic bicycle ride.) Then their outlaw lifestyle catches up with them, just like the ace lawmen doggedly chasing them all over the great American wastelands.

Thus, at the peak of their careers, these guys decide to retire. Maybe become heroes, "go fight in the Spanish in The War." Instead they hit up New York City, as seen in their sepia-toned vacation slideshow. Fed up with the Big Apple, they book it to dirty impoverished Bolivia, without a peso in their pockets or the slightest grasp of the language. Fortunately, pistol-in-your-face translates neatly.

As usual, the bad (good?) guys are terrible shots. Problems arise when enough bad-shot bad guys congregate in the same area; statistically, they have to hit something. Good thing our good guys don't take themselves too seriously, even though their wacky escapades leave invisible strangers in financial ruin.

The pacing flags in places, but the snappy banter between the diametrically opposed protagonists pins the story together. Their bandito antics seldom seldom cease to entertain, and even better are their crises of conscience. Butch gallivants like a harebrained Don Quixote, the Kid trundles as his weary accommodating Sancho Panza, although unlike Miguel Cervantes they'd probably flunk first-year Spanish.

110 minutes.

IMDb #213 Review: High Noon (1952)

Source: Wikipedia

When the West was still wild, a freshly wed U.S. Marshal takes up the tin star one last time. Why? To defend his life, his wife, and a whole town full of ungrateful bastards.

That's right. Gary Cooper just married Grace Kelly, so now he pulls a George Bailey and postpones the honeymoon to get right back to work.

Again, why? Well, because he did his job so well, a murderous outlaw he put away (recently pardoned) is moseying back into town on the noon train, to plug him. Despite the killing heat, the villains wear all black, because subtlety, like color television, hadn't been invented yet.

The marshal recruits special deputies from the townsfolk and receives an impressive variety of excuses. They hem and haw; attend church, then interrupt church for a town meeting/haranguing session; hide from his house calls; bet against him in the saloon and Sunday school, within earshot of the guy in question.

The only one on his side? His Quaker wife, a pacifist, against four ruthless ruffians. While the lawman frets, the wife visits the marshal’s ex, the local harlot, to fail the Bechdel Test.

Spoilers ahoy -- the final fight embodies the quintessential Western showdown. One obstinately moralistic macho moron stands against a pack of cartoonish evildoers. Add melodramatic orchestra, and you have a classic. Like any sensible idiot, the marshal fights dirty. For a good cause, so it’s OK.

This thrilling yarn, compressed into one awful morning, both elevates and debases human courage. The lesson: don’t rely too much on people, but be really frigging great at dealing with them. Preferably with a six-gun.

85 minutes.

IMDb #233 Review: A Fistful of Dollars (1964)

Source: Wikipedia

Jerks massacred in the ass-end of nowhere, The Movie!

Clint Eastwood stars as The Man with No Name, the silver screen's favorite squinch-faced, cigar-chomping mass-murderer. Our scruffy serial killer wanders into a blood-soaked little rathole called San Miguel. At best it's a loose conglomeration of planks and adobe, but the town harbors two rival smuggler gangs.

Here it's crooked sheriff versus legitimate crooks, Americans versus Mexicans, gun boss versus booze boss.

ENTER: our boy Clint, machismo made flesh, to stir up the metaphorical pot.

He provokes the feuding families to fight each other, likely to milk both for the titular fistfuls of dollars, most likely to amuse himself. Never rushing, never struggling, never panicking. Clint just oozes, like tar in a smoker’s lung. He protects the innocent (enough people to count on half a hand) and grimly dispatches the rest.

And the grand finale predictably culminates in a macho standoff between hero and villain, whiskers versus mustache, Colt. 45 revolver versus Winchester rifle. The result? Predictably glorious.

EXEUNT: all.

The action screams classic. By that I mean, old. Expendable extras die dramatically, often bloodlessly. It’s easy to knock people out with a bop on the noggin or a slap on the cheek. Sadly, amid the fake punches, explosions, and old-school gunshot effects, there’s a tragic absence of the Wilhelm scream. Missed opportunity. They compensate for this oversight with plenty of piss-poor lip-synching.

One last word. If Clint paints the picture of the Western, Ennio Morricone’s score creates the sound and soul. Flutes, whistles, plunking piano, twanging guitar — the music gives life to the universe, making the ridiculous slaughter entertaining if not believable.

Recommended for gun nerds firearms historians, spaghetti [western] slurpers, and worshippers of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (#107).