The Gunslingers is one of the modern westerns that is trying to reinvigorate the waning western genre. The movie opens with the main character, Butch, taking in his bounty, Rattler Fenton, to a rural jail. Like many westerns, the criminal spins a story of gold and riches if Butch will only let him go, and as in every other western the stalwart bounty hunter refuses. While these two men are crossing the desert, there is a stagecoach being robbed by Mondego in order to find the location of the gold that Rattler Fenton was promising Butch. While attacking the stagecoach to get the information on the location of the gold, Mondego kills Rattler’s partner and an innocent Japanese girl. Sadly, her sister Akemi saw all of this through the hole in the stagecoach and vowed revenge.
Shift back to Butch, who finally gets Rattler to the Jail. The sheriff offers Butch $100 for the convict, but Butch wants to get paid as he describes it, “an honest pay for an honest days work”. Of course, this doesn’t go over well with the sheriff and in an ensuing fight Butch is thrown in prison too. While in prison, Rattler manages to convince two Mexican brothers Charley and Puco Chavez to free him. They agree to break him out of prison in return for a share of the gold. In the ensuing fight, Rattler is killed; but not before he passed on the location of the gold to Charley.
As Charley and Puco were fleeing the scene they were ambushed by Akemi. After a brief engagement, Charley who was quite simple and nice, decided to take her with them to the town. Once these three reach town, they go into the saloon to grab a drink and then are accosted by Mondego and his crew of lunatics. In walks Butch, demanding to take the hide out of the Chavez brothers. After a lot of slaughter, Charley tells everyone to stop in return for giving Mondego the gold. Butch, Akemi and Puco decide to go after them in the hopes of getting Charley back and getting the gold as well. These people find Charley strung up after Mondego found no more use for him. They find out that Charley really does know where the gold is, and head off to find it. When these people finally find this gold, they are ambushed by Mondego and his crew. In the end, Mondego and his men are all dead, along with Butch and Puco. Finally, Charlie and Akemi ride off into the sunset to live out the rest of their lives.
I apologize if my synopsis was choppy, but that is an accurate description of the jumps and the randomness that ensued while watching The Gunslingers.
Two of Butch’s favorite words in this movie were “Damnation” and “Hellfire”. Sadly, this relates to The Gunslingers. When I started watching this movie, I was so excited for a brand new western. Unfortunately, for all of the descriptions and hype from the description, it failed at staying true to the western genre. There was a lot of mystical mumbo jumbo statements and aspects that had no real connection to any of the classic spaghetti western plot lines that The Gunslingers claimed to take after. This aspect was probably the most disconcerting facet of the entire movie; it felt like more of a fantasy/western than a true spaghetti western.
Along with this, were the cinematic visuals of The Gunslingers. This had a grittier, and darker feel than any western that I have ever seen. The producers shot it with a darker sheen that was laid over the entire movie, making it seem pretty dismal. Frankly, the cinematic had more in common with common day horror and sci-fi movies than any type of western that I have ever seen. The same can be said for the style and angles of the shots. Everything in this movie felt more reminiscent of the SyFy made for TV movies than the western roots than The Gunslingers claimed.
A few of the better parts of The Gunslingers surrounded the dialogue and character portrayal. While the dialogue was not up to the level of a blockbuster movie, it did remind me of the same style of speaking and sentence structure as many spaghetti westerns. This is specifically true of the Italian spaghetti westerns. The actors continued to do a great job bringing the characters to life and portraying them as the rough, tough cowboys that have come to dominate the western genre. John Elliot does a great job playing Butch Norton, bringing the since of self-preservation and mulishness to the character. The same can be said for Ben Hall, who was able to easily meld into the role of a cold-blooded murderer. While these two men were the most notable cast and characters, the entire movie was filled with unknown actors. These actors were perfectly able to represent their characters to the standards expected from this b-rate movie.
The only other major point that must be raised in The Gunslingers surrounds the style of fighting, shooting and action scenes. These fight scenes were quite choppy. In every scene, it was easy to tell there was choreography and that the people were afraid to take the risks of getting hurt. I could also disdinguish that they positioned the person for every punch, flip and roll; rather than letting the action flow and look liquid like in a real fight or blockbuster movie. The same can be said for the shooting and the action oriented scenes. While many of the spaghetti westerns had this similar style of basic action and fighting, The Gunslingers took it to an extreme that became a real detriment to the movie.
In Conclusion, The Gunslingers did not live up to the expectations and promises of the product description. Between the style of cinematography and the plot line I was quite disappointed when I was finished watching this movie. For those who love the old b-rate westerns I am not exaggerating. I love the old Lee Van Cleef movies, which have some of the same problems and factors that hurt The Gunslingers, however I just could not get into the spirit of this western.