Review of Bone Tomahawk (2015) by Cory G — 30 Dec 2017

I'm not a huge fan of westerns. Most of them are slow, meandering, and often stocked full of tropes and clichés that make the entire genre seem like copy and paste from an outside perspective. I've seen my fair share of them and Bone Tomahawk is a solid, but not outstanding hit.

The film succeeds because it doesn't shy away from the brutality of the old west, nor does it fantasize it with larger than life characters. It's gritty, real, and shocking. And to go a step further, it manages to blend horror elements into the mix without suffering from the same tonal problems that plagued Cowboys vs Aliens. There's a constant feeling of dread from the opening scene that builds until the final act of the film, which begins with one of the most graphic and brutal death scenes I have ever witnessed.

Most westerns are slow, and this is no exception. But Bone Tomahawk is a smartly made movie that uses its slowest points to tell us about the characters and show them interacting. Even though the plot doesn't move during these scenes, some of which are dragged out to five or ten minutes, they're still fun because the characters are entertaining and developed enough to be likeable, warts and all.

If I had to nitpick, there are a few jokes in the movie that take up way too much time. For example, one scene is devoted to the comic relief of the movie pondering how to read a book while taking a bath. This scene could have been cut out entirely and nothing would have been lost. The same goes for other scenes, including a pointless and awkward sex scene and minutes worth of time spent on a character hobbling through the desert on a broken leg. Cutting the film down by a good thirty minutes would have been fine, but like I said, it's just a nitpick. None of the scenes are outright bad, just a little too long or a little pointless.