Review of Bone Tomahawk (2015) by Kalem F — 26 Dec 2015

Bone Tomahawk had a sloppy drooling smile planted upon my face as I was watching it. As it's dry, deadpan, clever, slightly inconspicuous, slightly hidden type of humor is the type of humor I really enjoy.

And I hadn't seen that type of film for a long, long time. Where the point of the film is less the initial response from watching it for the first time, (except for one especially gory scene) but instead in the group shared identification of each carefully crafted, hidden joke within the film during any following repeat viewings of the movie, or the celebration of certain scenes, moments, and comical lines within the film by you and friends during any group shared repeat viewings or group shared discussions to follow.

However the movie for reasons unknown, beyond just a seeming running gag on the excessiveness and ridiculousness of the Foley Effects found and heard within traditional movie westerns, was incredibly quiet like a stage play. And the movie was incredibly slow in it's pacing. And both those things combined with the challenge of finding the subtle jokes where they lay, and the very real challenge of having enough patience and enough stimulated focus to do so, made the film a bit hard to get through.

Additionally it seemed like many of the jokes to look for were ones that an average viewer wouldn't notice or be able to appreciate, as they were filmmaking jokes, or at least nods in that direction. There seemed to be very subtle, yet intentionally placed, filmmaking jokes within the film in regards to it's editing, cinematography, sound, set building, set dressing, and even special effects use of green-screening that were there just for viewers knowledgable about filmmaking to spot and recognize.

But the more normal jokes, that were there as well, were quite intelligent and well crafted. Despite them being sandpaper dry and not readily apparent. As the more outwardly and purposefully made to be conspicuously and overtly comical characters of the old man and the character played by Matthew Fox served as comedic "foils" against the other characters like the one played by Kurt Russell. Who were playing things so straight-faced that their combined dead seriousness put against the inane pondering and nonsensical vocalizations of the imbecilic old man character, or the Matthew Fox character with his goofy mannerisms, facial expressions, verbalizations, and inexplicably odd and awkward body posturing throughout the movie created all these reasons for you to appreciatively laugh...

IF you happened to be picking up on and catching on to that humor to be found there at all. And additionally, only IF... you happened find yourself inclined to, and so disposed to, chuckle at that specific kind of humor at all.