Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Sadly Over-hyped

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I have always been a huge fan of the George G Gilman paperback westerns from the 80's.I have collected many of them over the years. I never thought that their would be a movie based on the stories, and directed by the great Shane Black. The film totally does justice and its full of shootouts, action and revenge - just like the books. The plot is simple - Josephia Hegdge's (Edge) brother is murdered by the son of a powerful man and 'Edge' rides into town to settle the score.A true western icon finally given a live action movie. Great performances from everyone. A total of 61 books in total were printed plus 3 spin off's where he teamed up with Adam Steele (another George G Gilman character - perhaps he might get a movie too?) and some later Kindle stories. A massive thank you to the film makers from a true fan.

I love westerns, even as shmaltzy as John Ford got, I still loved 'em. And I can even find things to like in the post-mod fun houses that Tarentino puts out. But this show is barely watchable unless you watch it PIP with "Blazing Saddles" at the same time. The violence is at times innovative but often gratuitous and just vulgar, the female characters are undeveloped, and could we please just put away the strong silent protag with a mysterious past. Toshiro Mifune did it best which is why Leone stole it, but put it in a jar labelled "Eastwood" and forget it. As with many modern westerns I wonder how they get made. The meeting scene near the end where landowners are getting orally served during the meeting, I think I get a clue what happened to fund this film. Worst of all, I can't believe Shane Black and not his pre-teen grandson wrote this script. Bad bad puns, unnecessary dialogue, tedious villains. Cmon, Shane. Was this a community service project to make up for parking tickets?

It amazes me how genuinely bad this show is. The characters are a random assembly of tired clichés; the bad guy who is actually good, the good guy who is actually bad, the fortunate son, the token "magic negro" black character. The plot is entirely predictable and trite. A retelling of a well-worn revenge tale, with the one "obscure item" every character is looking for story tacked on for good measure. The action is over the top cartoonish, but attempts to be gritty by showing occasional random body parts falling bloody to the floor.. The acting is pretty bad, with Max Martini technique seemingly based around having a gravelly voice and squinting. However with such one dimensional characters it is hard to blame the actors too much. The only good thing I can say is the pacing is quick. It throws the story at you fast enough that if you don't bother thinking at all you will miss the plot holes, poorly thought out characters, and just dumb story.Maybe some of this is a deliberate choice, a knowing attempt to create a tongue and cheek look at the genre, told in an implausible manner, but trying for a fun tale not to be taken too seriously. However it comes off as a genuine attempt, with little self awareness.

There were some positive things about this pilot. It has some of the elements of the classic spaghetti westerns I love, like the nameless gunslinger walking riding into the run down old west town and facing off with the corrupt sheriff and the mission to get revenge for the death of a beloved family member. On paper, this sounded like a great show. Unfortunately, it did not live up to my expectations. It was filled with outlandish, pulpy violence, which is not necessarily a problem, but it seemed out of sync with rest of the show. Too many fingers, toes and heads flew unchecked from various gunshot victims and it just felt silly. The biggest problem I had was the amount of collateral damage for which our protagonist was directly responsible. Granted, he is an anti-hero, but he doesn't seem to have any moral code and seems willing to kill or betray any number of innocent bystanders. They may not all be "innocent", but surely not all deserving of a gruesome death. Even an anti-hero needs to be likable in some way, so that the audience actually wants to root for him. If the villains were not such horrible people, I'd probably be rooting against Edge. If it is picked up to series, I would probably give it one more shot, but I'm not holding out hope.