June 13, 2023, 09:08 PM
parabellumWalter Hill, what has happened to you?
You gave us films like
The Driver, The Long Riders, The Warriors, Extreme Prejudice, Geronimo, Wild Bill, Last Man Standing and the premier episode of the HBO Series
Deadwood.
I have to wonder if you've simply been infected with the almost universal PC virus which infects Hollywood.
Dead for a Dollar is shit. It's written like shit and directed like shit. This is not even taking into account the entirely unrealistic female character- a white woman who in 1897 runs off with a black soldier and who acts more masculine than some of the men in the film; for example, walking across the room and slapping the shit out of a man who outweighs her by more than a hundred and fifty pounds and then just stands there with impunity. In 1897. Right.

This character is
not a woman from the last decade of the 19th Century; this is a modern-day woman projected into the last decade of the 19th Century. Is this a Sci-Fi film? Did I miss the time machine?
It's funny, though, that you romantically linked this woman to a black soldier but you didn't have the courage to show any affection between them- not an embrace or a kiss or even a single smile from either of them. Weird. It's almost like you're telling us that it was only about dick. If it's not that, then their relationship makes no sense. It looks like he didn't rescue her, each shows no affection for the other, no attraction, no reason to run off together. What are you telling us? It's amateurish script writing- an unfinished idea, or a concept you thought up but couldn't or didn't attempt to make real for the viewer. It's a movie, man- you know, for an
audience. FFS
Of course, you had to make her white male husband a complete asshole. Naturally.

You've turned into one of the Pod People, Walter.
But let's set all of that aside. The dialogue is stilted and the performances are no better. The characters are incomplete and it's like you wrote the script during a drunken weekend. In the latter part of the film, some of the characters show up- it looks like- just to get shot. It's like you had an outline for your story and then hurriedly filled in the details. You're an old hand at this, Walter. You know better. What the fuck has happened to you?
It used to be that a Walter Hill film promised to be a pretty damn good action film or Western. This thing you created is neither. Thanks for wasting my time.
June 14, 2023, 08:25 AM
ensigmaticThanks for the heads up, para
June 14, 2023, 01:06 PM
P220 SmudgeA couple times a year, I look at what recent production Westerns are out. I'll give this one a miss. Thank you.
June 14, 2023, 01:20 PM
oddballI became a fan of Walter Hill when Alien was released; the interesting thing about the film I learned at the time was that not only did Hill and a guy name David Giler produce the movie, they ghost wrote the shooting script of it as well, receiving no screen credit. I saw The Warriors in a a revival house theater years later, then saw 48 Hours and Streets of Fire in their first run. Also saw The Long Ryders and Southern Confort on VHS rentals, mainly for the Ry Cooder soundtracks. The last film of Hill's I saw was Last Man Standing on DVD. But as far as I know, that is it, I haven't thought of Hill in years. He seems to be one of those guys, like John Carpenter, who came out strong in the beginning and kinda faded away from the public.
June 15, 2023, 10:32 AM
0-0Have the ability to completely erase bad movies from my memory so i can’t provide any specifics.
Do remember being a big fan of Walter Hill’s movies and there’s a gap between those i like and the more recent ones.
Once i detected WH’s name on a recent film and it was a complete garbage, so bad i wondered if he had a son or relatives abusing his name.
0-0
June 22, 2023, 05:09 PM
divilI will skip that and stay with 48 hours, Last Man Standing and the vastly underrated Southern Comfort.