Back for another review! Since the W.A.T.C.H. experiment is officially concluded, this post will be a bit more footloose and fancy-free. Shorter and to the point—hooray!

Nicolas Cage, as we know, is known for his erratic, wild, over-the-top antics as an actor. Some of his most conventionally played roles (World Trade Center, The Runner) are his more boring movies (in my opinion). When he paints outside of the lines (Peggy Sue Got Married, Vampire’s Kiss, Army of One, Mandy) Cage gives us viewers quite an entertaining experience. You can argue that the films themselves may be well-flawed and that his stylized performance can be distracting or overwrought, but I doubt most viewers would find themselves completely bored. It’s a spectacle. The bad one’s are often the most entertaining (or funny even).

With his latest offering, Gunslingers, the Cagemeister really pushes past the wildly bizarre and entertaining into the totally absurd. It pains me to say it.  In his defense, the script for this misguided western is kind of a mess. Much like his other westerns (The Old Way, Butcher’s Crossing) the story in Gunslingers is just missing some essential connection and key elements that matter to an audience. Everything feels flat, at times completely inane, and the action scenes are claustrophobic, dull, and predictable, much like the dialogue.

Ben (Nic’s character) really tries, too hard, to “breathe” some life into this catastrophe of a film—a straight to video affair that is easily mistaken for a CMT procedural. He overreaches by conjuring the spirit of a black gospel preacher, combined with glam rock star (e.g. cross-shaped shades), and a dash of Peaky Blinders (i.e. bowler hat) mixed in.

Nic embodies and vocalizes this mess of a character through the asthmatic gasps of a person suffering from late-stage emphysema. It’s so weird to watch, it’s painful. If you happened to see the documentary Val which highlighted the actor Val Kilmer’s career and battle with throat cancer, you’ll start to get an idea of what Ben sounded like in Gunslingers—like someone whose throat was removed and requires a digital simulator.

What makes this even more awkward to me is that it seemed like Cage was trying the vocal equivalent of “black face”. Let’s call it black voice; and because of his religious bent, we get quotes from him like “Hep me, Jesus! Hep me! Good God, ya’ll hep me.”  This took me way back to the awkward facepalm of watching his other racially overtoned film, Amos and Andrew. (W.A.T.C.H #18) Eek.

If that description doesn’t give you pause, Ben’s character is also a devout Christian Bible thumper, and a pacifist to boot. In the middle of a life-or-death gunfight with a posse of corrupted lawmen, he’s white-knuckling and groveling with his conscience that reads like cowardice.

SPOILER ALERT: Ben finally does make a turn and shoots up the movie, saving his comrades and rectifying himself some, but not before we are all thoroughly frustrated by him and his Christian values.

The potential was there…(some spoilers)

I’m not going to summarize the film but the idea behind this film was conceptually interesting. Redemption is a town in Kentucky where wanted men turn up. They are “accused” of their crimes there, baptized in the river, and then summarily hanged and buried. But the death and burial is all staged. The “dead men” (and women) instead go into hiding for a while and then re-appear weeks/months later in the town, with new identities and new chance for life. The location of the town is so far off the beaten path (in 1907) that outlaws need a hand-drawn map to even find it. Talk about a reverse witness relocation program.

This is a cool idea for a movie. If you told me this was the plot of the movie Gunslingers, I’d probably watch it. But the promise doesn’t deliver much in the way of satisfaction. These outlaws don’t change their physical appearance at all, and even though Redemption is hard to find via map, it’s not nearly impossible. The posse that comes into town looking for one particular outlaw, Thomas (played by Stephen Dorff) roll into town without a thought and already had a “mole” or insider helping them find their man. This seems like a pretty weak and ineffective security system.  

I also like the idea of the eccentric “witness” Ben being the town photographer, religious nut, and style maven of the town called Redemption. This all works for me, and his pacificism, while annoying given the approaching violence, also creates an interesting moral conundrum. If only the producers of this film would have done some actual character development of Ben to show what he was like before coming to Redemption and what caused him to turn Christian and give up his guns.

But really it’s the voice that kills the mood and makes every scene feel a bit ridiculous. Eccentric characters are some of my favorite in cinema but only when they find their footing in the story. This time, Ben just didn’t.

Why you shouldn’t watch this one…

When I was lamenting how bad this movie was with a fellow Cage fan, he asked me, “Do you think we’ll rewatch [it] in 20 years and have a change of heart?”   My response.

“If full dementia has set in, maybe?”

That’s how I feel about this one. There’s so many things wrong with it, it’s hard to even focus on the palatable parts of Nic Cage’s performance. I’ll just give a list of my biggest complaints.

• The shootout at the beginning of the film. What was the point of it? Why did it go wrong? And why did one brother blame the other for the killing of a Rockefeller? I don’t know the answer to those questions and I’ve watched it twice now.
• Why is the saloon called Domus De Sallust? Not explanation given.
• Heather Graham, as Val, is in this film (for some reason) and seems to be in love with her brother-in-law, Thomas? I have no idea what that’s about or how he feels about her. No backstory or character development. She shows up in Redemption with a bullet in her leg and a young long-haired child that I think is male, but who is made to look female. Still not sure. She pulls the bullet out herself without passing out OR even screaming. Sure, sure.
• Everyone’s clothes in this dirty Kentucky town look immaculately clean. Their faces look clean, their hair looks washed, their teeth are shining, etc. The costumes also have a weird patched together look. As if this film crew raided the costume closets of all the surrounding film sets to create this hodge-podge look.
• Robert, the villain of the film, looks as if he were modelled after the Nazi villain in Raiders of the Lost Ark. He’s got a burned face, an eyepatch, and a fedora style hat. Again, it doesn’t fit.
• The guns look shiny and stupid.
• Jericho (Costas Mandylor), the tough bar owner / mayor of the Redemption, is the poor man’s Andy Serkis. He also spends three-quarters of the film traveling the underground caves with his daughter (played by Sylvester Stallone’s real-life daughter) looking for a supply of guns–while all his men are getting shot to pieces up top. What a waste of a character. He does eventually kill some of the posse members by playing possum in the storefront shootout.
• This entire film seems to have been shot in one location (maybe a Universal backlot) and it gives the film this flat, claustrophobic quality of unreality to everything. At least in The Old Way there were wide open vistas, mountains, forests, and western expanse to give some verisimilitude to the whole enterprise. Not in Redemption.
• There’s no rationale given for what turns Ben from pacifist Jesus-lover back into gunslinger. He just decided to start killing again to save his friends. Sigh.
• At one point three of the men are being hanged (or nearly) for a good 2-3 minutes of the action. Ben is trying to save them by pushing the platform back up to give their feet purchase. Ben gets shot and falls down and the men struggle to breath once more. Jericho arrives to help Ben but instead of trying to prop up the platform first, he helps Ben to his feet. This is dumb and could have killed all three hanged men.
• Val’s tears look fake, the blood looks fake, and the liquor looks fake.

So I guess you can say I didn’t love Gunslingers. Movie theaters didn’t love it either. I think it was straight to on-demand. I don’t recommend it, and probably won’t watch it again, unless I get dementia.

IMDB.com gives this film a 3.6 out of 10 rating and this feels about right to me.

Hope you’ll check back in soon for my reviews of The Surfer and The Carpenter’s Son.

For old time’s sake, here’s a couple more lists:

First for Nicolas Cage character Ben

• First time in a film set in Kentucky (my birthplace)
• Old timey photographer
• Wearing cross-shaped shades
• Talking like an old baptist preacher with emphysema
• Waving his hand like a holy roller while hugging his Bible close to his chest
• Wearing a bowler hat.
• Reading a Bible at a bar.
• Religious pacifist who returns to his gunslinging ways.
• Caressing his crucifix during a gunbattle
• Pulls a giant splinter / stake from his arm.
• Accidentally breaks someone’s neck.

Recurrences:

• In a western (Butcher’s Crossing, The Old West) 
• Character name of Ben (Leaving Las Vegas, National Treasure I & II)
• Smoking a pipe (Butcher’s Crossing)
• Dealing in some old time religion (Left Behind, Season of the Witch, Bangkok Dangerous)
• Shot non-lethally (Multiple)

Quotables (all spoken in asthmatic wheeze):

• “He looks just like a little angel in piece. On his way to heaven.”
• “On 3. 2. 1. Action.” 
• “This is interesting. This book. This Bible. You should try it. Read it.”
• “He’s not here. He’s six feet under his mark in the graveyard. Hung for murder months ago.”
• “I was busy readin’ the Bible, Bella.”
• “No guns.” 
• “There’s fire in hell, Mary! Hot FIRE!’
• “I thought you threw these away, Jericho.” [Referencing his guns.]
• “Camel. Needle. You got that right, Doc. Sweet Jesus, mmhmmm.” 
• “Paise the Lord. How!” 
• “Baptize me. Matthew 3:14.” 
• “JESUS, FUCKING, CHRIST!”
• “Help me Jesus. Help me! Good God, ya’ll, help me!” 
• “Course I shouldn’t drink too much if I aim to get into heaven, but if that’s goin’ around I-I-I-I I’ll take a sniff.”