Waste of time

Very best movie i ever watch

Such a frustrating disappointment

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

I normally love westerns, so when I stumbled upon this one on Netflix, I decided to give it a look. Usually when I watch a western, I can find some good things about it and be forgiving of some flaws. Well, I did find some good things in this movie, but ultimately it was flawed enough to make even me realize that it wasn't very good overall. First, the good stuff. I really appreciated that the script decided to go against convention and put some fresh twists in its story and characters. I won't go into too much detail about how they do that, though I will mention that the character who is usually a bad guy in westerns like this is NOT the bad guy this time around. The locations and cinematography are also pretty good, sometimes combining to make some impressive visuals. Also, after watching so many fast-paced and action-packed westerns, this one is more laid back, and its calm and thoughtful feel is sometimes refreshing.However, ultimately the movie is TOO calm and laid back. The story is extremely slow for the most part, and quite often the movie seems to be spinning its wheels instead of getting down to business. The movie was also saddled with a very low budget, with a minimum amount of production values. The cheapness of the project may also explain that some of the lines of dialogue are pronounced and recorded so poorly that it's hard to understand what the characters are saying. (Even the English caption option on Netflix was unable to understand some of the dialogue!) As I said, there is some good stuff here, but the movie has a few too many flaws for its own good. It's the cinematic definition of the term "interesting failure".

The only good thing about this movie are the filming locations. Otherwise don't waste your time. Love the Ghost ranch Abiquiu filming location, drive through there a few times a year, on our way to Pagosa Springs. Stop a couple of miles north of there to let the dogs go potty! (road to the Christ in the desert Monastery). Someone actually called it a "deep, thought provoking, passionate film!" Wow.

I've seen and reviewed hundreds of Westerns here, but this is one of the most unconventional stories you're liable to come across. It's got that familiar element of a greedy land grabber trying to bilk a woman out of her family's ranch, but the story goes much deeper to reveal the dysfunction of all it's characters, most notably Martha Kirkland (Clare Brown), who opens the story in uncharacteristic fashion. I won't make that reveal here for the benefit of those who haven't seen it yet, but the film sends the viewer on a compelling journey in trying to determine who the picture's good guys and bad guys are.With all the clichéd story lines one will run up against in the Western genre, this one offers up a number of intriguing elements that haven't been tested before, at least up to this point in my viewing experience. The first was that 'bullet in the glass' which put Martha and husband Heck (David Call) on notice that Wade McCurry (Barlow Jacobs) wasn't buying the explanation for his father's death. The limited back stories of the principal players also contributed to the unsettling resolution that came with Heck's confrontation against Wade. That he rode with Quantrill's Raiders and Bloody Bill Anderson went a long way to explain how he had no trouble gunning down mining company rep Lane (Joseph Lyle Taylor).For an independent production with a novice director, I can only see good things going forward for Jared Moshe, who crafted this movie with relative unknowns. The cinematography was more than competent, and though I acknowledge the occasional inaudible dialog that other reviewers have mentioned, my use of captioning proved useful enough to understand what the characters were talking about. For anyone who believes the tale is too slow in the telling, stick around for the final resolution, as it stands typical Western conventions on their head. The only thing I was left to ponder in the end was how Three Penny Hank got his name.

I, personally, love slow burners like this one - with beautiful western scenery, long single- take shots, and interesting and attractive characters. I agree with nearly everything already mentioned in the previous reviews so won't repeat all that here. Save to say I felt the dialog, and this the film, was spoiled by Martha's mumbling! I had to turn on the sub-titles to understand what Clare Bowen was saying as she truly is one of the world's greatest mumblers. (Even in Nashville I have difficulty understanding her.) And even the sub-title writer must have had problems, because quite often in Martha's speech it would just say "inaudible". That said it is a beautiful western! And we don't see too many of them around these days.