Review of Meek's Cutoff (2011) by Greg D — 25 Aug 2011

I just saw the movie "Meek's Cutoff". It's a little film about a band of Oregon Trail settlers in the mid-19th century who get lost on their way across the continent. They're stuck in the high desert, unsure where they are going, low on water, with a guide who has already gotten them lost and clearly doesn't know where he's going. Along the way, they encounter an Indian, who might be an enemy, or who might just be the key to their salvation. Sounds like a solid premise for a film, right?

Well, I thought so, and boy was I wrong. This film is terrible. And that's coming from a film-goer who is generally very easy to please. Really, the best way I have to sum up this movie is "an incredibly ambitious failure". There are individual parts of this film that are really very good. The cinematography is outstanding - it is dramatic and illustrative of so many of the different landscapes of the American west, while portraying it so well for what it is - a beautiful, harsh and completely unforgiving wilderness - that it becomes almost a character in its own right. The performances are all excellent. The point of view of the film - that of a female settler on the Oregon Trail - is unique and interesting. And yet, the director just can't seem to take all these wonderful elements and put them together into a coherent and worthwhile film.

So why exactly is this movie so bad? Two reasons. For one thing, it's just plain boring. Boring! There's so much great setup, such opportunities for tension and drama, and yet, almost nothing really happens. So much running time is dedicated to watching these folks trudge along through the desert that halfway through the film I was literally thinking to myself "ROCK CLIMBING". I suppose that reference is only useful to MST3K fans; suffice it to say, far too much of the film is spent doing nothing but watching people walk slowly through a desert.

Second, their really is no ending to this film. It just... stops. *SPOILER* Just at the moment when there might be a ray of hope, the movie just ends. The characters once again agonize over whether or not they should follow the Indian, and the guide says some pretentiously profound words about how they don't really have a choice, they already made it long ago, and they can do nothing but play their roles from here on out, and then the credits roll. *END SPOILER* I _think_ the director was trying to do something here where he was centering the film around the choice itself, and maybe about how sometimes we make choices without realizing we're making them, but without showing us the ultimate consequences of the choices his characters make, we're left with something that is ultimately meaningless. The audience is left to wonder, "so, what happened?" To which the pretentious artist will answer "that's not the point" or "it doesn't matter" or some similar BS. To which the audience will then respond "piss off, I wasted my time and my hard-earned money on this dreck".

Seriously, it's as if I told a story in which I said, "There was this guy, and one day he decided to take the bus home from work instead of the subway." The natural inclination is to want to know why this was important. What happened on the bus, or the subway, that made this choice notable? What were the consequences? If I then tell you "oh, that's it, that's the whole story," I've pretty much guaranteed that you would want to punch me in the face for wasting your time. And so, mister director of Meek's Cutoff, I would very much like to punch you in the face for wasting my time.