Review of Heaven's Gate (1980) by Harry W — 16 Oct 2012
Michael Cimino lavishes this big budget western with beautiful cinematography, great art direction, nice calming music and great acting. It has also been shot in a beautiful location with great costumes and props to make the film believable, and it has an enjoyably premise. The film is visually stunning but still consists of several flaws.
The film moves too slow at most parts which is a serious problem for a 3 and a half hour movie. And there is way too many pointless romantic themes for a film about the Johnson county war, and they never go anywhere.
However, the shoot out scenes in the film are really cool and grab your attention well. So considering there's good action but crap romance, I would call this the Pearl Harbor of western films. But still, unfortunately the movie drags on for so long that half the time I'm not sure if it's going anywhere. Even though it bombed at box office and was criticized for a lot of things, the film is beautiful in its own ways and Kris Kristofferson is known to be good in westerns. It didn't deserve to bomb so badly, but then again it didn't deserve the budget it was stretched to.
This review of Heaven's Gate (1980) was written by Harry W on 16 Oct 2012.
Heaven's Gate has generally received positive reviews.
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