Review of Renegade (2004) by Ola G — 11 Mar 2016

In the 1870's, U.S. Marshal Mike S. Blueberry (Vincent Cassel) has dark memories of the death of his first love. He keeps peace between the Americans and the natives who had temporarily adopted and taken care of him. The evil actions of Wallace Sebastian Blount (Michael Madsen), lead him to confront the villain in the Sacred Mountains, and, through shamanic rituals involving native entheogen Ayahuasca, conquer his fears and uncover a suppressed memory he would much rather deny...

"Blueberry" is based on the famous Franco-Belgian comics western series created by the Belgian scriptwriter Jean-Michel Charlier and French comics artist Jean "Moebius" Giraud. It chronicles the adventures of Mike Blueberry on his travels through the American Old West. Blueberry is an atypical western hero; he is not a wandering lawman who brings evil-doers to justice, nor a handsome cowboy who "rides into town, saves the ranch, becomes the new sheriff and marries the schoolmarm." In any situation, he sees what he thinks needs doing, and he does it. As a fan of the comic since my childhood I was intrigued of the fact that they finally had managed to get it up on the silver screen back in 2004. I saw it then and didn´t like it at all. And now I gave it another chance and I still don´t like it. Jan Kounen's "Blueberry" is an existentialist western with way too much CGI visuals, simple characterisation and a shamanistic undercurrents that almost takes over the film. First of all the idea of making a western with a french twist (as the comic is from France) is not working as Vincent Cassel simply can´t convince anyone in international productions compared to in his native tongue. The film is a sad by the book "Western for Dummies" film with poor acting, poor dramatisation, wishy washy storyline and with a unclear focus. And not much in common with the fantastic comic. There´s a lot of famous names in the film (such as Tcheky Karyo, Vincent Cassel, Juliette Lewis, Michael Madsen, Temuera Morrison, Ernest Borgnine and Djimon Hounsou) however that doesn´t help when Kounen has no idea how to handle them and get strong performances from them as the whole production becomes so gimmicky and comic like in a bad way. There´s strong visual storytelling, but what´s the point with that when the rest is unfocused, poor and pretentious. It´s a massive failure in my eyes and my advice is to read Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean "Moebius" Giraud excellent comic instead and enjoy their fantastic work instead of wasting your time on this pointless piece of film.