Review of In a Valley of Violence (2016) by Spangle — 11 Mar 2017

And the Academy Award for Good Dog goes to....JUMPY. If you watch that video of him on Youtube, you can see everything he does in this movie, but with his owner and years before this movie. It also has the added benefit of sparing you watch him be killed by a real **** Do not worry though, Ethan Hawke killed the **** out of that dude, which is the good news. Bad news though, the dog does die in the movie. Why must movies kill these good dogs? Apparently Jumpy's trainer is the same one that trained Uggie from The Artist, so you know that this dog knows what he is doing. Director Ti West respectfully takes a step back and allows the film to celebrate Jumpy's talents with him biting a priest, leading a horse, tucking himself into bed, and covering his eyes like a good dog are the true highlights of this film. No shame either: I skipped over the parts with Jumpy being written out of the film. I knew he was going to meet his demise and that Ethan Hawke would go brutalize the men that did it, so no need to watch Ti West drag that scene out far longer than needed (it is actually a few minutes long; Jumpy gets shot and then the really bad guy breaks out a knife after speaking to Hawke with Jumpy whimpering for like three minutes, so I skipped it at that point and realized I did not want to know what happened). Regardless, Jumpy is the real star of this film. Everything is just done to give him a platform to bigger and better productions, so for that, In a Valley of Violence is entirely worth it. Otherwise, it is just a solid film from Ti West.

A spaghetti western throwback with the plot line of John Wick, it is clear that Ti West likes Sergio Leone. The score is very Morricone, but worse. The introductions and font type at the end are very Leone. The introduction of this stranger rolling into town is very Leone. Only problem: he has a name, which is Paul (Hawke). He also talks way too much. That said, West does a relatively decent job of bringing the same sort of style to the film in this relatively straight forward update of a spaghetti western. Infusing it with comedy and graphic violence, West puts his stamp on the proceedings enough to make it more than just a straight stylistic rip-off.

As Abbie's (Jumpy) human, Ethan Hawke turns in a typically solid performance. He just goes around hanging out with Abbie and killing dudes who kill Abbie, so he does not do much here, but the guy sure can kill people. In all seriousness, Hawke is a very good everyman actor and this really shines through here as we quickly relate to his problems and past as a cliched Indian killer in Oklahoma or Kansas for the military. He has regrets and does not want to kill anymore like every other western protagonist, but by God, you cannot kill a man's dog and expect to continue breathing. I know if anybody touched my dog, I'd rip their throat out and make them swallow it. Now, that may go poorly since they would no longer have a throat, but the imagery is quite powerful I'd say.

Other than Hawke, John Travolta is fine and leads the way for the rest of the cast. He plays the Marshal who is the father of a stupid son who, along with the other deputies, killed Abbie. Travolta's Marshal tried to get them to leave Paul alone, but could not. He is a decent man who may have risen to power in the town of Denton by force, but is hardly an evil man. His son, however, is real trash. Watching him get the **** beat out of him with a boot was oddly satisfying. James Ransone overacts as the despicable Gilly a bit, but he is still solid. As the only other characters with any semblance of lines, Taissa Farmiga and Karen Gillan are really bad. Either their dialogue was awful, which it was, or they were just bad, but their confused delivery of lines seem to indicate it is little bit of column A and a bit of column B. Regardless, their characters were bad and they were bad in the roles.

Largely a cliche and run-of-the-mill western, Ti West has some fun, but never wows here. The film definitely thrills and entertains though, but it is ultimately a film that is largely just an above average nostalgia film. West clearly has some good instincts with the genre though so I would love to see him try to be less derivative next time he works in the genre, if he does. He is a guy that critics seem to like, but audiences hate and I have no idea why. His films, from what I have seen, are largely quite palatable and straight forward. This is just a genre film that is pretty harmless, yet some viewers seem to think it is absolute garbage. It is a well made, largely well acted, and thoroughly entertaining western. It is slow, yes, but all westerns are slow.