untitled
BROKEN TRAIL
Directed by: Walter Hill
Internet Movie
Database Entry for full details
GRADE: B
(2.7/4)
2006.
Walter
Hill’s new film fits neatly into the Westerns canon with its Deadwood-esque
visual style (Mr. Hill directed the pilot episode of the series),
a Peckinpah-esque climactic shoot-out, and irritating musical montages that
echo Butch Cassidy.
The film, or more accurately the miniseries as it was originally
broadcast in two parts on AMC, tells the story of an old man (Robert
Duvall) and his nephew (Thomas Hayden Church) as they move several
hundred horses from Oregon to Wyoming. Along the way, five virginal Chinese maidens
happen to wind up in their custody and
they take ‘em along for the ride.
Duvall, who also produced, graciously hangs back in Part One and allows
Church's character to drive the film; he steals the show in a fine performance,
expressed almost entirely, in reaction shots, through his glaring
eyes. The two men carry the film because it falls
flat whenever female characters appear on the screen at all. Hill showed
himself to be something of a master of male relationships under duress
in films like The
Warriors and Southern
Comfort,
but apparently he don’t know a damn
thing about girls. They are all two-dimensional, nothing more
than sympathetic victims or, in the case of “Big Rump
Kate”, a bombastic supervillian. Characters, whether male
or female, good or bad, ought to be a little more complex than that.
There are moments of originality, intelligence, and
emotionality, so it would be unfair to write the film off as
just another generic cliché. At its best, however, the film just gently rocks back and forth between
failure and success like a rickety rocking chair. -- Henry Stewart
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