Although his leading man days are history, Val Kilmer has maintained his sense of humor. During his marquee days above the title, he appeared as Elvis in "Top Gun" director Tony Scott's adrenaline-fueled, 1993 comedy-thriller "True Romance," with Christian Slater. You never saw Kilmer's face. You saw his physique and you heard his melliferous Elvis impersonation. Kilmer stole the scenes with Slater when he appeared in the background as the King and counseled the delusional hero.
Later, Kilmer appeared briefly as a Los Angeles taxi driver in the independent British feature "Played," a 2006 revenge crime thriller in the Quentin Tarantino vein about trigger-happy hooligans. During the filming of a scene where Kilmer's cabbie rushes the wounded hero to a doctor, Kilmer's real-life cell phone rang and he conversed with his mother without breaking character. The director of "Played" loved the spontaneity of Kilmer's improvised dialogue so much that he kept it in the film. Anybody who enjoys Val Kilmer movies, however, may knit their brows in dismay about the new Lionsgate's DVD release "Dead Man's Bounty," a symbolic but snake-bitten, frontier law & order western with an R-rating for violence, sexual content and language.
Originally, art house theaters showed "Dead Man's Bounty" in 2006 and 2007 under the unlikely title "Summer Love." First-time writer & director Piotr Uklanski had already acquired a reputation as avant-garde conceptual artist, whose works appeared at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Venice Biennale, long before he went behind the cameras. According to a reputable Polish Culture website, Uklanski "recycles visuals, concepts, and clichés and gives them a new presence, both crass and seductive, precisely by questioning the politics of different visual worlds." The website adds that Uklanski "uses stereotypical motifs and strategies from pop culture, art, and cinema to address issues of cultural identity and authenticity." Uklanski lives up to this reputation with "Dead Man's Bounty." As an example of his "insolence in the way he plays with audience expectations," Uklanski cast " Tombstone " lead Val Kilmer as a corpse. Kilmer's dead man sprawls lifelessly in each shot, staring glassy eyed into eternity without a blink. Never does he utter the first syllable. You cannot say that you were not warned about "Dead Man's Bounty" in these hallowed pages. Most people who either rent or buy "Dead Man's Bounty" are going to howl like a coyote!
Like Val Kilmer's guest role as a corpse, "Dead Man's Bounty" qualifies as bizarre, almost surreal. Moreover, "Dead Man's Bounty" is being billed as the first Polish western! The rugged, violent, and ignoble west of Piotr Uklanski blends the nihilism of 1960's Spaghetti westerns and the authenticity of HBO's trail-breaking western mini-series "Deadwood." Uklanski depicts western violence as indiscriminate, sanguinary, and often satirical. The sympathetic heroes and dastardly villains that you would expect to find in a traditional western are absent from "Dead Man's Bounty." Indeed, Uklanski appropriates traditional western elements as a metaphor, but he retools the genre to accommodate his skewered ideology. Happily, the scenic Polish landscape substitutes splendidly for the arid 19th century American Southwest, and lenser Jacek Petrycki's evocative widescreen photography provides a feast of striking images comparable to Frederic Remington.
"Dead Man's Bounty" emerges as a mythic western. The characters lack names. Their occupation dictates their identity. This symbol-laden saga opens as a Stranger in black (Czech actor Karel Rogen of "Blade 2") finds a number of dead bodies at a river crossing by a burned stagecoach. He discovers the fly-infested corpse of the Wanted Man (Val Kilmer of "The Saint") among them. The Stranger rides into an anonymous frontier town but loses everything, including the body of the Wanted Man--worth five hundred dollars--to a drunkard (Boguslave Linda), the town sheriff who behaves erratically. As his favorite pastime, the sheriff dons eye patches and bets gamblers that he can identify them the second time they smash their fists into his face. "Dead Man's Bounty" probably trots too far off the trail for traditional cowboy movie enthusiasts.
The Stranger's next mistake is sleeping with the woman (Katarzayna Figura) who owns the town saloon. Afterward, the locals confront him with their guns and try to disarm him. When the Stranger drops his rifle, the weapon discharges accidentally and hits one of the locals in the leg. A crazy gunfight ensues with bystanders becoming casualties. One local wounds the Stranger in the head, and the drunken sheriff gathers a posse to pursue him. Later, the Stranger cauterizes his bloody head wound with gunpowder from his own bullets that he ignites with a pair of matches. Clearly, Uklanski has seen the Clint Eastwood oater "Two Mules for Sister Sara."
"Dead Man's Bounty" mimics westerns in general and Sergio Leone Spaghetti westerns in particular. The joke here is that most Spaghetti westerns featured an unknown or faded American star, and Uklanski exploits Kilmer with the same idea in mind for his Pierogi western but only as a corpse. Uklanski directs with a heavy hand and the pace is often leaden. On the other hand, "Dead Man's Bounty" is rarely predictable. Unless you fancy yourself a connoisseur of pretentious, postmodernist art, "Dead Man's Bounty" may give you saddle sores. Meanwhile, Kilmer buffs who don't share their star's sense of humor may find "Dead Man's Bounty" too tough a horse to ride.
Later, Kilmer appeared briefly as a Los Angeles taxi driver in the independent British feature "Played," a 2006 revenge crime thriller in the Quentin Tarantino vein about trigger-happy hooligans. During the filming of a scene where Kilmer's cabbie rushes the wounded hero to a doctor, Kilmer's real-life cell phone rang and he conversed with his mother without breaking character. The director of "Played" loved the spontaneity of Kilmer's improvised dialogue so much that he kept it in the film. Anybody who enjoys Val Kilmer movies, however, may knit their brows in dismay about the new Lionsgate's DVD release "Dead Man's Bounty," a symbolic but snake-bitten, frontier law & order western with an R-rating for violence, sexual content and language.
Originally, art house theaters showed "Dead Man's Bounty" in 2006 and 2007 under the unlikely title "Summer Love." First-time writer & director Piotr Uklanski had already acquired a reputation as avant-garde conceptual artist, whose works appeared at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Venice Biennale, long before he went behind the cameras. According to a reputable Polish Culture website, Uklanski "recycles visuals, concepts, and clichés and gives them a new presence, both crass and seductive, precisely by questioning the politics of different visual worlds." The website adds that Uklanski "uses stereotypical motifs and strategies from pop culture, art, and cinema to address issues of cultural identity and authenticity." Uklanski lives up to this reputation with "Dead Man's Bounty." As an example of his "insolence in the way he plays with audience expectations," Uklanski cast " Tombstone " lead Val Kilmer as a corpse. Kilmer's dead man sprawls lifelessly in each shot, staring glassy eyed into eternity without a blink. Never does he utter the first syllable. You cannot say that you were not warned about "Dead Man's Bounty" in these hallowed pages. Most people who either rent or buy "Dead Man's Bounty" are going to howl like a coyote!
Like Val Kilmer's guest role as a corpse, "Dead Man's Bounty" qualifies as bizarre, almost surreal. Moreover, "Dead Man's Bounty" is being billed as the first Polish western! The rugged, violent, and ignoble west of Piotr Uklanski blends the nihilism of 1960's Spaghetti westerns and the authenticity of HBO's trail-breaking western mini-series "Deadwood." Uklanski depicts western violence as indiscriminate, sanguinary, and often satirical. The sympathetic heroes and dastardly villains that you would expect to find in a traditional western are absent from "Dead Man's Bounty." Indeed, Uklanski appropriates traditional western elements as a metaphor, but he retools the genre to accommodate his skewered ideology. Happily, the scenic Polish landscape substitutes splendidly for the arid 19th century American Southwest, and lenser Jacek Petrycki's evocative widescreen photography provides a feast of striking images comparable to Frederic Remington.
"Dead Man's Bounty" emerges as a mythic western. The characters lack names. Their occupation dictates their identity. This symbol-laden saga opens as a Stranger in black (Czech actor Karel Rogen of "Blade 2") finds a number of dead bodies at a river crossing by a burned stagecoach. He discovers the fly-infested corpse of the Wanted Man (Val Kilmer of "The Saint") among them. The Stranger rides into an anonymous frontier town but loses everything, including the body of the Wanted Man--worth five hundred dollars--to a drunkard (Boguslave Linda), the town sheriff who behaves erratically. As his favorite pastime, the sheriff dons eye patches and bets gamblers that he can identify them the second time they smash their fists into his face. "Dead Man's Bounty" probably trots too far off the trail for traditional cowboy movie enthusiasts.
The Stranger's next mistake is sleeping with the woman (Katarzayna Figura) who owns the town saloon. Afterward, the locals confront him with their guns and try to disarm him. When the Stranger drops his rifle, the weapon discharges accidentally and hits one of the locals in the leg. A crazy gunfight ensues with bystanders becoming casualties. One local wounds the Stranger in the head, and the drunken sheriff gathers a posse to pursue him. Later, the Stranger cauterizes his bloody head wound with gunpowder from his own bullets that he ignites with a pair of matches. Clearly, Uklanski has seen the Clint Eastwood oater "Two Mules for Sister Sara."
"Dead Man's Bounty" mimics westerns in general and Sergio Leone Spaghetti westerns in particular. The joke here is that most Spaghetti westerns featured an unknown or faded American star, and Uklanski exploits Kilmer with the same idea in mind for his Pierogi western but only as a corpse. Uklanski directs with a heavy hand and the pace is often leaden. On the other hand, "Dead Man's Bounty" is rarely predictable. Unless you fancy yourself a connoisseur of pretentious, postmodernist art, "Dead Man's Bounty" may give you saddle sores. Meanwhile, Kilmer buffs who don't share their star's sense of humor may find "Dead Man's Bounty" too tough a horse to ride.