Westerns have progressed to a different level the last few decades. They aren’t your uncle or fathers Westerns anymore. They’ve become more gritty, bloody, and violent.  Filmmakers have taken what they have learned about the business of movie making and used it to make the western genre into a more relatable genre for film fans of all ages. Not just other citizens like your father or uncle. Gunslinger’s, for instance, uses violence, blood, and guts to create a unique vision, but not exactly a good film experience. 

1903 New York City, Thomas Keller (Strphen Dorf) and his brother Robert Keller (Jerrmy Kent Jackson) are involved in a heist, but accidentally kill a known gangster they have to go on the run.  Four years later, in a small Kentucky town, the two are reunited but under many different circumstances. Violence ensues as the two brothers thought each other was lost and  separated for good.  A Bounty on one of them is too good to pass up, which causes the other to seek revenge while one is just trying to survive at all costs.

This film has a complex story, but that story is deeper than the initial perception. A group of gunslinger’s are Haller up in the little town of Redemption, named for how a group of cutthroat villains and no good criminals try to get a new lease on life. They are led by Jericho (Kostas Mandylor), who was also an ex-villain. He tries to help these men rehabilitate and make life in the small town worthwhile for themselves and Dorfs character, with whom they’ve given sanctuary. They eventually get wrapped up in his message. All hell breaks loose in the town of Redemption. 

The cast in this western is a big one and filled with B movie stars and a few A listers you might recognize. Nicholas Cage as Ben is doing something completely off the range from everybody else in the movie. He is out to lunch compared to what everybody is doing. The director just lets him do whatever he wants to do. Scarlet Rose Stallone, the daughter of Sulvester Stallone and Jennifer Flavin, plays the daughter of Mandylor’s character. She is just getting into the business, but I’m sure her famous parents had something to do with her getting the role in this film. She still has a lot of work to do to get on her father’s level. Heather Graham plays Val, the wife of Dorfs character brother and close friend of his as well.  She has a daughter and is running for her life because the man that she is married to is consumed by revenge and greed. The cast is so vast that I can’t talk about all of them, but they all don’t give worthy performances. Some of them are quite wooden and downright bad. That’s represents this film in a nutshell.

Even though I am a huge fan of Westerns, I have to be honest and give my readers the truth. The truth is there is a lot wrong with Gunslingers. The least of which is the wooden acting by many of the cast members. The most glaring thing that was wrong with this film is the obvious fact that the men who are henchmen for the main villain are shown over and over again. They are wearing red handkerchiefs over their faces so viewers can’t see the same men over and over again get killed by Dork’s character and so forth. They mostly have white shirts, so the face blood can be shown most noticeably on screen. These are things an amateur filmmaker would do, not a seasoned veteran director like Brian Kiba. These are inexcusable gaps in judgment. No manner of how you look at it. These are major issues that even the least knowledgeable filmgoer would notice. I’m just shaking my head in disgust by how bad these things were.

There is a noticeable thing to this western that you normally don’t see. That part of what I was alluding to when I said this was a modern take on the genre. A fresh take on the genre proved to be too much. Trying to modernize an old genre like Westerns might not always be the right move. The story was a bit convoluted, and the dialogue was very kinky. Combined with a lot of wooden or bad acting from many character actors or established stars, make this a big miss in the western genre. Lately, the genre has been making a resurgence,  but this movie sets it back quite a bit. That’s sad because I was looking forward to Gunslingers.  The film doesn’t live up to its cool title in the least.

1 star

Dan Skip Allen