Review of Gunless (2010) by Jim M — 03 Aug 2011

Canadian Praries: During the late 19th Centuary (sometime after 1870 judging by the presence of the Northwest Mounted Police) American Gunslinger "The Montana Kid" (Paul Gross) rides into Barclay's Brush a tiny Hamlet of about 17 people. He immediatly picks a fight with the town blacksmith challenging him too a duel, unfortunatly he's gonna have to work with a beautiful widow (Sienna Guillory).

They tell me this is a comedy so why am I not laughing. This movie seems to be made by people who have never seen a western, but had a few described to them by a friend once. The "altercation" between Jack the Blacksmith and The Kid is pathetic (basically Jack takes the horse in, shoes it and thats it oh he calls the Kid common as well). Apparently the "Code" demands the Kid call him out. Now in the Westerns whether classic, revisonist, spaghetti or modern the protagonist had a code, the protagonist also didn't go looking for trouble over trivalities or misunderstandings, something major had to stir them to action, indeed most went out of there way to avoid trouble. Most where men of few words, not braggerts like the Kid. See what you got here is Paul Gross (I still haven't forgiven you for fucking up Passchendaele so badly) trying to pull of his best Clint Eastwood impression, sadly not succedding. In fact there was not one performance I gave two shits about. Worse this movie goes out of its way to be "offensivly Canadian" by which I mean all the Canadians are polite and curtious and oh go fuck yourself we're not all like that give your characters some depth for Christ sake. Ahem. sorry. The presence of a presciously cute prepubescent Chinese girl makes things worse...and me want to puke. I can still dream of a deceint western set in Canada, comedy or otherwise, and hell might be time to attempt a rebirth of the "Northern" (old serial adventure films usually featuring Mounties as there heroes from which we get the phrase "A Mountie always gets his man" and which Dudley Do-Right spoofed), but "Gunless" is not it. Do avoid.

BTW for anyone who's foolish enough towns folk in the Canadian west of the 19th centuary would only need guns for hunting one might want to consider why a Northwest Mounted Police was necessary as well as the presence of American Whiskey Smugglers, threat of Fenian Raids, renegade Indians fleeing the American Indian Wars, the violent rivalry between the Hudsons Bay and Northwest Fur Trading Companies, the Metis (see both the Red River and Northwest Rebellions), the Fraser Canyon War/Gold Rush, Cypress Hills Massacre of 1873, the 1870 Battle of the Belly River between the Cree and the Blackfoot Confederacy, the concept of Manifest Destiny still strong in the US, as well as the nastier element a frontier always attracts.