It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Blistering performances.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Sometimes I think I must have an organic brain issue: To me, films like South of Heaven are the gold standard of film westerns; it elevates the genre to a perfectly tuned noir, where style and mythos entwine like the gunpowder that the hero burns and huffs to keep himself grounded. The film's bizarrely low IMDb User rating makes me wonder if I need help, or what.I found the flick to be a wonder, from bottom (production) to top (mythos). The writing is absolute gold, the direction is fine-tuned, the acting beyond professional. And all the foregoing feels of-a-piece.The product teases you along its wispy thin tendrils of character development and dusky-framed scenario snapshots, and succeeds where so many films fail; at creating a truly immersive cinematic experience that transcends its pretense of genre (western) to create a compelling shadow play of morality, honor, and all else besides.Don't side with the rabble: Give it a shot.

It plays like a TV Western miniseries: slow, deliberate, lots of characters. But the script is a mess. The inciting incident doesn't occur until twenty minutes into the film. The protagonist disappears in major segments. Characters are miserable, poorly defined, loud-mouthed, and annoyingly angry. There's a lack of plot flow that makes the film hard to follow. For example, characters in early scenes disappear to be replaced by new characters that then disappear. Some plot elements seem unrelated to the underlying story. The entire plot is chaotic and disorganized.The film attempts to tell the story of Val Casey (Dwight Yoakam), lawman in a desolate town called Los Tragos, Arizona Territory; the year is 1907. But something happens and Val morphs into a different occupation; I'm not sure what. We meet a variety of people in this film, most of them unlikable. There's lots of gunfire and violence.As bad as the script is, the visuals are fine. All that dust, the dim indoor lighting at night, wooden exteriors, and the vast expanse of empty land combine to make for a visually pleasing, and realistic experience. And the sound of the wind adds to the tone of forlorn desolation.Threadbare costumes and interior decor seem realistic for the period. But I didn't like the highly repetitious score.At over two hours in duration, "South Of Heaven, West Of Hell" is something of a chore to get through, aside from the interesting visuals. It's as if we are watching a downsized Western epic. Dwight, stick to songwriting and singing. That's where your talents lie.

South Of Heaven Looks Terrific. All of the production department did great work on this picture. The Director of Photography was James Glennon and he and his camera department crew shot a beautiful western movie in Arizona locations and western towns. His exteriors look like a big movie and his interiors are beautifully lit. Le Dawson was the costume designer, Production Designer was Siobhan Roome, Lee Ross worked as Art Director, Bart, Dennis Dion and their team did the Special Effects. The entire crew were all top talents. The Audio Recording crew did such good work on location sound recording that there was no need for re-recording dialogue. Enjoy how wonderful all the scenes just look like such a good looking big motion picture and all produced on a limited budget. Enjoy it. Top cast as well.

After a robbery and multiple murders, Marshall Yoakam hunts his scummy outlaw foster family, including bible-thumping dad Luke Askew (who's great), hot-headed brothers Vince Vaughn and Paul Reubens (!), culminating in a strange showdown at Bridget Fonda's father's boarding house.It's always quite a gamble to give a movie camera to someone who's first claim to fame isn't film. Writer/director/star/composer Dwight Yoakam is an excellent entertainer and a good character actor. But this is just too pretentious and rambling, with a plot looser than a two-dollar whore.On the other hand, there's some great photography, loads of amusing moments, and a lot of Dwight's famous friends hanging around.Though not as bad as everyone says it is, I'd say this could have been a great movie if it had only been taken away from Yoakam in post-production. Typical of novice filmmakers, he just doesn't seem to know how to sacrifice unneeded scenes for the greater good of the picture. Another thing novice filmmakers do is write multiple scenes where they get to make out with gorgeous women!As a particularly over-the-top desperado, Joe Unger is the most entertaining thing about the movie, the second being the hilarious Michael Jeter.Billy Bob Thornton, Warren Zevon, Scott Wilson and Peter Fonda are all wasted in pointless cameos. Also apparently wasted was Dwight Yoakam when he wrote the script!