Yee-haw, folks, time for a good ol’ western. But they cast two Brits to play Americans around the civil war era. Hey, could you find any other non-American actors for this American western? Crikey! This one had two big stars – Pierce Brosnan as Gideon, a Union Captain during the civil war, and Liam Neeson as confederate Colonel Carver, trying to track down Gideon. I am a huge fan of Liam Neeson, or, as I affectionately call him, Big Nose Beady Eyes (BNBE for short). What’s the dealio with BNBE being in almost every other movie made over the last five years? Does he need the money? Does he get married and divorced on an annual basis? Perhaps he’s saving up for plastic surgery to get his big nose and beady eyes fixed? Who nose, I mean knows?
Anywho, at first it’s fun to try to figure out which one was supposed to be the southerner – neither had much of an accent at all. Though Pierce Brosnan seemed to think channeling Marlon Brando’s godfather affect was a good idea. Sadly, it didn’t work, and I kept waiting for him to stuff leaves or tobbacky into his cheeks to make bigger jowls. And what’s the deal with that goatee and hair? Was he supposed to look like one of the three musketeers? And by the way, why did they call them musketeers when their only weapon was swords? Shouldn’t they be carrying muskets? What in the hail?
Back to the flick, so Carver was chasing Gideon with a cliché posse of four men: two gravelly voice tough guys, a fat guy, and the kid. Right off the bat, Gideon was in a camp and suddenly shots rang out – he got hit in the arm and ran away, tumbling down a mountain. Somehow, he’s ok – more of those shenanigans later. Still trying to escape and freezing (there was snow on the ground so they could easily track him), Gideon tried to cross a raging river and, of course, fell in. And, as always happens, the water got more turbulent and how can such a scene not end with a waterfall – Gideon plunged over, then swam to shore. Oh but he’s still ok! Yay! Somehow, he was immune to the hypothermia which would have killed anyone else in five minutes. But he managed to get away and start a little fire with gunpowder from bullets – oh come on! And more clichés – he had a bullet in his arm, so of course he had to dig it out with a giant bowie knife. And of course, he had to “sterilize” the knife first with booze. And of course, he had to put a rag in his mouth to muffle the screams. And of course, he plunged the knife into the fire to cauterize the wound, with the requisite screaming and the inevitable silly fainting from pain. Jiminy Christmas, that was such a hackneyed scene!
So Gideon recovered just as the posse approached. They split up to find him – obviously someone had to get killed by Gideon, and you knew it couldn’t be Carver, so who would it be? Who else, the fat guy! Remember this rule – the fat or old guy always gets it first. And he bit the big one by the most ridiculous method possible. Gideon somehow climbed a tree with his bum arm, and somehow, even when the fat guy was directly under the tree and looking up, didn’t see him. So Gideon would just drop out of the tree and land on the fat guy with his knife, right? Gideon was higher up in the tree then you think, but he had a better idea. He dropped his giant knife, which of course fell perfectly point down, didn’t touch a branch, and struck the fat guy right in the head. Pffft! But it got even better, Gideon then slipped and fell out of the tree, hitting every large branch on the way down à la Jack Black (Jables) in the Tenacious D epic, The Pick of Destiny, after tripping out on mushrooms. Remember when Jables landed on a big branch, smashed his balls, and screamed, “Oh sweet baby!”, then fell to the ground? Wooo! Hey I gotta review that movie, it’s a great one. Well, this scene was very similar, except Gideon didn’t smash his balls or yell “Oh sweet baby!”. But, you guessed it, he miraculously suffered no injuries. Ludicrous.
Carver only had three guys now, plus now Gideon had a gun – uh oh. Carver’s two best tough guys were played by Michael Wincott as Hayes and Ed Lauter as Parsons. You’ve seen these guys in other movies, almost always bad guys. And they have the bad guy looks to a tee. Wincott even has a terrific he-man voice. Speaking of he-man, where did this expression come from in the first place? I remember seeing little ads in the back of comic books for exercise programs for turning 98 pound weaklings into he-men. But isn’t he-man kind of repetitive? Is a woman ever referred to as a she-woman? But back to a he-man voice, don’t you wish you had a he-man voice? I know I always did – this is why I like to write – my voice sounds ridiculous!
Enough of this he-man foolishness – Parsons had some great stares and facial expressions, but sometimes his lines sounded like they were in a different language. In fact, in one scene Parsons said to Carver, “dorb brutoosh fenig”. I am not kidding, we backed it up and watched again and it sounded exactly the same. What in the hail?
One last observation – BNBE can’t ride a horse for shit! In one scene, he and Hayes riding through a valley and Hayes moved his hips and kept his head level but BNBE bounced up and down like a frickin’ pogo stick! CUT!! Get the stunt double in there!
In any event, this was a decent movie with enough foolishness to add some unintended comic relief. Three Cyrano de Bergerac noses out of four.