Gunslingers

With such a modern world that we are living in it´s easy to forget about what really matters. Some might say that having many cars is the true joy in life or what set of golf clubs you own ( even though they were expensive as hell ). The way i view things is different because none of what i mentioned matters to me. I feel it is more important to appreciate the smaller things, such as Sunday dinner with family or having a drink in a pub with a good friend. Sure, i do have a big movie collection that i have gathered for many years, but at the end of the day my family and friends matter far more to me than any physical things. Sometimes when i look back in history and read about how life used to be, i can see why families spent more time together. Just look at the late 1800´s in America around the Gilded Age that started around the year of 1870. This was a time where some families got to experience immense wealth through big business, while other families had to struggle to survive through extremely hard work and rough working conditions. One imporant detail though during this time was the importance of having a solid family ground, spending time together even if times were rough and find ways to survive. I really enjoy watching western films in general that tries to portrait how life was in America during the late 1800´s. One film i feel should be mentioned more often when we discuss the genre of western is the 2015 film known as Diablo. Directed by Lawrence Roeck this film is actually a little bit different than other western films that turns into a psychological thriller. This film have a great cast with Scott Eastwood ( son of Clint Eastwood ) and especially a great performance by actor Waltor Goggins ( mostly known from TV series The Wire ). Diablo is beautiful filmed western and the twist towards the end is a nice surprise, worth a rent on VOD. I always look forward to check out western films and one movie poster of Gunslingers caught my attention. A good cast and a cool title for this genre? I decided to rent this film on VOD and give it chance. Is this the perfect western film to end this summer or is this far more terrible than i expected?

In a town named Redemption, reformed gunslinger Thomas Keller ( Stephen Dorff ) and mad genius Ben ( Nicolas Cage ) are guided by spiritual leader Jericho ( Costas Mandylor ) towards vindication. While confronting their violent histories, their newfound peace is challenged by violence and revenge.

Oh boy, i have to talk about something for a moment that´s definetely the worst part of Gunslingers and that is the performance of Nicolas Cage as the Bible loving character Ben. The voice of this character sounds hillarious on so many levels, and the acting? Let´s just say that this is worse than his performance in the horror film The Wicker Man. I have seen Nicolas Cage do classic performances in films such as Wild At Heart and Leaving Las Vegas ( i even enjoyed his performance in the 2011 medieval horror film Season Of The Witch ), so to see him do a performance as bad as in Gunslingers is just sad. You might ask yourself does this western have any redeeming qualities at all? I would say that the best part of this film is the actual gun battle scenes and let me tell you, they shoot down a lot of people in Gunslingers. That is something we don´t see often in more modern western films so that was a positive surprise. When it comes to acting in general i would say only a few characters stand out. The main character Thomas Keller ( played by actor Stephen Dorff, yes the vampire leader Deacon Frost in the 1998 classic action horror film Blade ) reminded me of classic western characters, doesn´t say too much and is focused finding his kidnapped wife. Stephen have a certain charm in this genre and even if i have seen him do better acting, i do feel he helps this film get back on track for a bit. Actress Heather Graham have some enjoyable scenes, but she should have had more screen time honestly. One big issue with Gunslingers is that the character development is not good. We don´t find out much at all about any character really, and in a western film you expect at least some kind of character development. Gunslingers could have been a fun experience, unfortunately we are left with a forgettable western film. Director Brian Skiba once directed the awful action film Pursuit with John Cusack and Gunslingers is definetely a better film than Pursuit, but that´s not enough to make this a good western film.

Rating: DD