Western Hall of Fame II

This was just plain silly. The opening scene in the stagecoach station had promise and I hoped it would be a movie with fleshed out characters, deep themes and an intelligent script...But nope I got none of that.

Instead The Salvation plays out like a bad 1990s slasher movie were the people's actions are so implausible that you want them to get killed just for being so stupid. And true to it's slasher styling, the bad guy is as one dimensional as they come. I couldn't believe the scene where the bad dude comes into town and announces that the town's folks better find the killer of his brother within two hours OR he will kill two town's folks and so does...and old lady and a double amputee, OMG! Talk about an unbelievably situation. No time was spend building up why the bad guy was so evil or had so much power over the town's folks. Later on we see the wimpy sheriff and a half dozen of his deputies in a scene and they're armed, so we know the town's folks have guns, so they could have fought back.

The whole film infuriated me: example Mads Milkkelson has escaped and is armed with a repeating rifle and is hiding behind a big rock as a dozen or so of the bad men ride in close formation out in the open of the prairie. Mads' character is both an ex soldier and expert hunter, he could have killed everyone one of those men. With no cover they'd dropped like flies. The whole movie was like that with a lazy script that seemed best suited for a video game.

I like John Wayne, I do...The character, that is. I don't know much about his personal life other than he's been described as being right wing. But that doesn't matter to me. I mean I like Woody Allen and he's one weird dude. But people seem to really hate John Wayne and I'm not sure why? But maybe they should watch more of his films. If they did they'd see he has more dimension to him than meets the casual observers eye.

Here in The Cowboys we see he's tough as nails on the outside while having a soft spot for the boys he hires (hmm, that sounds odd) What I mean to say is: he's lost his own two sons and had grown old. His concern is for his wife's well being and later for the boys he hires to work for him. He comes to think of them like sons. So unlike other of Duke's films we see a softer side, we see a man who loves his wife and is even gentle and kind to her.

I loved the way the film takes it time and never rushes. It allows us to spend time so that we can feel we're a part of the story. A lot of movies just don't linger on the moment, The Cowboys does and does so at the right times.

The other impressive thing is the actual cattle drive. Think about it, this isn't CG crap and it's not just close ups of three cows in somebodies pasture. We see a large cattle drive in stunning wide angle, distance shots as they travel through the vast country side. I mean we see a lot of terrain, and it's easy to forget how hard on-location shooting is for the film maker, especially when done in so many different and rugged landscapes. Most films today would not have spent the time and money to do this.

Oh, big shout out to the best psycho-bad guy around, Bruce Dern! Damn! he was impressive as the unhinged cattle rustler...very believable and so very daunting.

Great film and I'm glad to have rewatched it.