Echoes of War (2015) User Reviews

This film has something to say, if you have the patience (and you should)

[CokenaSmile · 6/10 · 16 October 2016]

If you are expecting a shoot 'em up western, look elsewhere. If you're looking for a film that examines the aftermath of the Civil War in somewhat brutal terms and offers a "that was then, this is now," perspective to the average, impoverished white Confederate soldier coming home from the war, this is your film.

Editing could have been tighter while keeping the pensive tone. There's some elements of metaphor that should have gone just a little deeper with another draft on the script (who perishes, who survives & manner of disposal). It seems that most apt films about the South are made by foreign directors, starting with Renoir's The Southerner. The Aussie director gets a lot of things right, and for that, I will indulge some of the dialogue and pacing issues.

Ethan Embry disappeared into his role, and the film is worth watching for that.

Could have done without the graphic bedroom scene early on (not that I'm opposed, just that it wasn't necessary to establish the character as evil), but I'm guessing it was supposed to be a metaphor for how the wealthy barons of the South raped it even after it was no longer the Grand South?

If that's the case, then the character is both baron and carpetbagger in one, which is a little odd, but we'll roll with it.

Webs.

[rmax304823 · 6/10 · 30 December 2016]

It's no masterpiece. How COULD it be, with a budget that must have been barely enough to feed the two disenfranchised ex Confederate families in Texas? One family traps animals; the other, disenfranchised by the Civil War, the McCluskeys, steals some of the animals and trespasses on the other's property.

The conflict is intensified by a Romeo/Juliet romance between a slightly reptilian McCluskey boy and the pretty blond daughter of the other family. James Badge Dale returns from the war to join the offended family, figures things out, is unable to control the violent impulses he's acquired, and it leads to bloodshed.

No masterpiece, no, but a fine piece of low-budget and deliberately paced film making, with no simple crap about evil people and good people. That is, of course the formerly rich family shouldn't steal from their neighbors. But -- should they all be slaughtered, including the helpless old matriarch, for having done so? Or even for having accidentally shot and killed a young son of their adversaries? Is it up to one man to make that judgment?

The dialog is limited and sometimes elliptical. (Thanks, Terence Malick.) I like William Forsythe, my co-star in the unforgettable, umm, what was it again? Yes, "Weeds." He doesn't get to do much but scowl. Maika Monroe is the pretty daughter, Abigail. That beastly name alone deserves a prize for originality -- no Mary Jo, no Scarlett, no Corey Sue, no Ariadne, no Kimmy, just plain old Abigail, a dusty old name for the wife of a dusty old president. James Badge Dale does a phenomenal job, really. His features always seem to be broadcasting one or another variation of "confused."

Two other things. One is that the violence is subdued and there's a whole bathtub full of it at the end. Another is that the musical score by Hanan Townshend seems to consist of one extended, ominous chord. It fits the story, in which no one seems to be having much of a good time except when Abigail and her forbidden boy friend are rooting around on the pebbly shore of a small creek.

I don't know why there are so many insults directed at it.

THERE ARE TWO PATHS

[nogodnomasters · 5/10 · 25 September 2018]

Wade (James Badge Dale) returns to his poor rural farm after the Civil War. He lives with his brother-in-law Seamus (Ethan Embry) and his two children. His sister has died. The Confederate army confiscated all their cattle as he and his neighbors scrounge for food, mostly trapping and in the neighbor's case poaching which causes friction between his family and the McCluskey's. Randolph (William Forsythe) is head of the McClusky family and is mean and not understanding. His son Dill (Ryan O'Nan) is a half-wit and his other son Marcus (Rhys Wakefield) is in love with Seamus' daughter Abigail (Maika Monroe). Seamus is a religious man and loathes violence while Wade suffers a bit of PTSD and has a desire to protect his family at any cost, raising the intensity of the feud.

Most of the film had a TV production drama quality about it, except for one scene which included the F-bomb, sex, and nudity (Beth Broderick) designed to make us dislike Randolph which wasn't necessary. Some violence and killing. Nothing very intense. A watered down Hatfield/McCoy film.

Boring beyond belief!

[WMEAsst · 10 September 2019]

I challenge anyone to sit and watch this movie in its entirety. The writers of this material must have been really really high when writing this. And the people who funded this must have been even higher. The people behind this couldn't have made this any more boring if they had tried. Stupidity begets stupidity.

Feeble filmmaking, lackluster performances, uninspired storytelling.

[bradleylawsoncpa · 2/10 · 30 September 2015]

This was torture to sit through. To call this piece tedious and boring is an understatement.

The plot is basically about a Civil War vet returning home to his family and becoming involved in a feud with their neighbors. There is nothing compelling to drive the story forward, there are long scenes of characters doing mundane things and not too much happens in this. I wonder what was the point of making it. Is it supposed to be experimental? I don't get it. The performances from the actors were, in my opinion, quite subpar. William Forseythe did what he could I suppose, but you can't build a house without a foundation, and this script's foundation was never laid. I'll assume it's lazy writing, what else could it be? Also, the accents of the actors were way off, not even remotely realistic.

I regret spending time watching it.

extremely well acted

[ferguson-6 · 7/10 · 18 April 2015]

Greetings again from the darkness. The fallout from war goes beyond the violence and massive loss of life. Returning soldiers often struggle to regain a sense of normalcy, and are often labeled as PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And what of the families … those left behind with a gaping hole in their heart from the loss of a loved one, and those having to adjust to the "affected" surviving soldiers? This is the heart-breaking story of two families at the convergence of all of the above.

With the Civil War ending, Wade (James Badge Dale, "The Pacific") returns home in search of "peace". He shows up at the house of his brother-in-law Seamus (Ethan Embrey) and is greeted with open arms by his niece Abigail (Maika Monroe, It Follows) and nephew Samuel (Owen Teague), who clearly worship him as their favorite Uncle.

Though it's not a Hatfield and McCoys extreme, it doesn't take long for Wade to figure out the awkward and mostly silent unbalanced relationship between Seamus' family and the McCluskey neighbors. Randolph McCluskey (William Forsythe) is a bitter man who lost a son in the war, has an unresponsive wife (Beth Broderick) due to that loss, and two sons: Dillard (Ryan O'Nan) who is a bit slow-witted, and Marcus (Rhys Wakefield) who is far too sensitive to be accepted by his crusty old father.

Wade's best intentions of protecting his family turn a barely tolerable arrangement into an all-out war. On top of that, we get a bit of Romeo and Juliet to go along with Wade's slow-drip meltdown as he is simply unable to handle what the war has made him. The connection between Abigail and Marcus is exciting to watch, though we all recognize a romance facing a heavily stacked deck. Wakefield was previously seen in The Purge, and Ms. Monroe was stunning in It Follows. Both are young actors to keep an eye on.

It's almost unbelievable to accept that this is the first feature film from director Kane Senes and his co-writer John Chriss. There is so much going on here with multiple layers of conflict and personalities … plus the movie is beautifully shot with an air of artistic flair that lightens a mood when necessary, or makes an analogy of nature and man either through plants, critters or the sky. Religious overtures play a role, and it's fascinating to watch the various interactions … each more complex than the previous, culminating with Wade and Seamus who seemingly couldn't be more different.

The film explores the comparison of bravery versus cowardice and it challenges our beliefs. There is also a theme of survival – just what makes a life worth living? The acting here is something to behold. All eight are exceptional and contribute to the film's ultra-serious approach, broken by brief moments of pure joy. With a terrific and complex story, stellar acting, and a talented director, this is one that serious film goers should seek out and embrace.

Raunchy Like the Rest These Days

[beorhouse · 1/10 · 13 October 2017]

There ought to be a law. Seriously. This is raunchy trash, for those of you who like that kind of garbage. If you decide to watch, be prepared to be repulsed. Question: why do producers keep throwing their money at directors and their poorly written and scripted films that won't make any money in any venue? Avoid this one, folks. There are far better ones out there.

The grim reality

[GwydionMW · 7/10 · 12 July 2016]

Most Westerns show something totally unrealistic. This shows something like it would actually have been.

First, everyone is poor. The trapper family have always been poor. Their neighbours were once prosperous cattle ranchers, but their cattle are gone. They are reduced to trapping, but they don't have much skill with it. They trap illegally on the land of the trapper family.

The head of the family, whose wife has died, is religious and puts up with it. But his brother-in-law gets offended and feels the need to do something about it.

Separately from this, the daughter of the house is seeing one of the sons of the former rancher.

All this happens shortly after the Southern defeat in the US Civil War. Both the rancher family and the returned brother-in-law fought for the South. The brother-in-law is haunted by memories - what we'd now call Post-Traumatic Stress.

A slow-burning conflict develops from there. Not exactly an action movie, but showing the grim reality that most films ignore. It clearly doesn't please those who expect Westerns to be like live-action video games.

Banal and boring beyond belief.

[sxswguy · 3/10 · 26 April 2015]

Sitting through the entirety of Echoes of War was a difficult task, to say the least. I guess I was expecting something else, something totally different, something entertaining. It reminded me of sitting through one of those educational films in high school history or science class. You want to watch it because you're hoping to learn something (in this case be drawn in by a compelling story), but you end up with heavy eyelids and your mind drifting off thinking about whether you want a Big Mac or a Whopper when the bell rings or final credits come up.

If I'm going to be expected to sit through a slow burn drama like this, it damn well better be captivating with staggering performances. Echoes of War had neither. I think James Badge Dale and William Forseythe are decent actors and did a fair job considering what they had to work with, but the material was simply too sub-par to expect anything more from them. The characters are one-dimensional and predictable. Difficult to tell if you can fault the direction on this or not. Sometimes even when you have a great director at the helm of a slow, deliberate drama, it can still fall flat and fail to move an audience.

The other problem I had with this film was the score became slightly distracting at times. I gave this a rating of 3 only because I'm a fan of the Western genre, but if you're forced to watch this thing, I suggest you suck down 10 cups of coffee beforehand.

Echoes of Bore

[austinlimits · 2/10 · 7 May 2015]

If you see one film this year, make sure it's NOT this one...unless you're in need of some shut-eye. In fact, if you see dozens of films this year, your time would best be spent doing anything else than watching this dreadful piece of garbage. Holy crap, the fellas who made this are clueless when it comes to storytelling.

Dull and excruciatingly slow doesn't even begin to describe this regurgitated Hatfield & McCoy-type story. There's no tension or real drama, the plot is as bland as unseasoned potatoes, the acting is nothing to write home about, the music is downright annoying, the photography is, well...meh, The whole stinking thing is plain awful. As a matter of fact, to call this awful is actually an insult to awful films.

Rating this 2 stars out of 10.

Important subject matter, beautifully handled.

[barlow36 · 10/10 · 25 April 2015]

Films like 'Echoes of War' are rarely made these days.

It tackles a very real and current issue in our society; the consequences we face when we won't help our war veterans assimilate back into society and everyday living. And it tackles the theme from a distance by being set in 1866, just as the 'Civil War' was exhaling it's last bastions. Wade, a confederate soldier, returns to his recently deceased sister's home to reunite with the only family he has left and discovers that things aren't as they should be. That's as much as I'll say about the plot, but for the rest of the film...

The cinematography is delicately considered and breath-taking. The cast includes the likes of James Badge Dale, Ethan Embry, (rising star) Maika Monroe and Rhys Wakefield - a dream ensemble. In my opinion, they nailed it! It's so nice to see excellent acting from an entire cast. Owen Teague is definitely one to watch! He was mesmerizing as 'Sammy'.

But what speaks most for the film is the writing itself and the hands-off direction. It is poetic, bleeding metaphors and the characters' language is both contemporary and a nod to the past, which helps the audience connect to them and the time. It's clever stuff. The writing is also very Chekhovian, teeming with subtext, effortless and informative all at once. It expects you to keep up instead of beating you over the head like most films we watch today. Similarly, the director (and editor) has done a wonderful job in allowing the writing, acting and cinematography breathe. It's nice to see such raw performances in their full glory, it's a rarity. Also - the score blends beautifully with the performances and the pace of the film. It's a fantastic psychological drama buried in a western setting and has made me think a lot about what we're doing to help our men and women returning home from war.

Well done "Echoes of War"!

Uninteresting and unoriginal. Pulled the plug after thirty minutes.

[13SecondFilmReviews · 21 May 2020]

Nothing happens in this. Seriously...nothing! If you're going to rehash the tired Hatfield and McCoy-type saga, either make it bold and fresh, or go figure out something else to do. To call this boring and pedestrian is an understatement. I would have rather been coughed on by strangers with COVID19 than to kill a half hour on this.

Some films should never be made...

[lonestarsinger · 2/10 · 22 April 2015]

...and unfortunately, this is one of them. Where does one even begin with this debacle?

Let's start with the dialogue: OMG, people during the Civil War era didn't speak like the way the writers of this have written the characters. That immediately erased any suspension of disbelief.

Next, the performances weren't terrible, but they weren't great either. A really deft cast might have been able to improvise the poorly written dialogue to elevate the film and their performances, but instead we are left with characters sounding almost like the way people in today's society would speak.

Cinematography was okay for the most part but became a bit self-indulgent for the worse at a few points.

The movie crawls along and is sabotaged by it's sluggish pacing. This film could have easily been a 60-70 minute film instead of a drawn-out 100 minute yawner.

The overall story suffers from a complete lack of originality and consequently fails to really draw in the viewer. There are a few scenes that work, but the majority of them in this film are pointless and somewhat incoherent.

If you value your time, you might want to avoid this one.

One of the dullest Westerns ever

[DallasCinefile · 2/10 · 17 April 2015]

Lord almighty, I don't know what this filmmaker was trying to accomplish with this thing, but it was so incredibly boring. I was hoping this was going to be more interesting, but the pace was excruciatingly slow and the story not at all compelling. There was nothing in the way of performances to get excited about and the production value looked really chintzy. Doing a period piece in general is challenging enough, but doing a Western without stars or a seasoned director is a tall order certainly not filled by this effort. Unfortunately there is nothing I can recommend about Echoes of War other than it should be avoided if you value your time. Truly one of the dullest Westerns, if not films, I've ever seen. Zzz...

Terrible writing, weak performances, and boring story!!!

[tarheelbooster · 2/10 · 25 May 2015]

Screenwriters John Chriss and Kane Senes have provided a screenplay filled with way too many western cliché's and not enough original content. Re Senes' direction, the sluggish pace causes this film to spiral out of control. The acting in the film is also weak. James Badge Dale is very one dimensional in his role as the war veteran. William Forsythe's character is also a lost cause: acting as the antagonist in the film, you neither understand, nor do you care about the events of his past that have lead to the person he is now. Echoes of War is a film that struggles to resonate any true enjoyment for its viewers. A story that is not original and is in fact quite boring, it is destined to ride off into the sunset and out of our memories very quickly. Don't waste one second of your time on this film. You can thank me later!

This movie pretty much sucked

[Landon1995 · 1/10 · 19 April 2015]

As I sat in the theater watching this horrible train wreck of a movie, I couldn't help but mourn the Western genre. Where has it gone? The last good western I remember seeing was Unforgiven. This isn't even close...not by a zillion miles.

James Badge Dale, Ethan Embry, and William Forseythe star in this tired Hatfield and McCoy type story about a Civil War vet returning home after the war and the strife between two feuding families. The movie plays out at a snails pace and becomes drawn out and impossible to sit through. To be honest, I dozed in and out the entire time because it just couldn't hold my attention. It didn't help that the director was attempting to channel Malick on some of the shots because it just made it more mundane than it already was.

Add to that the fact that some of the roles were miscast and you have a really bad movie.

Excellent Acting and Incredibly Pensive Script

[stevenajon · 8/10 · 25 April 2015]

Anyone who accuses this film of being slow or inauthentic has completely missed the point. I had the good fortune of attending the premiere of Echoes of War at the 2015 Dallas International Film Festival and I have to say, it was one of the most powerful experiences I had during those ten days of screenings.

Ethan Embry and James Badge Dale are powerhouses here, and that's saying something with a cast that is so deeply invested in their craft. Every scene is packed with nuance and detail, and the imagery loaded into every frame is phenomenal.

You're not going to leave this one feeling like the world is a magical place, but that's not the point of film. This is art; it's meant to make you think and feel. Senes and Chriss have accomplished both here, and audiences will be grateful for the experience.

Straight to video snoozer

[smubaseball · 1/10 · 27 April 2015]

Films don't get a whole lot more boring than this one. They bill it as a western - probably in an attempt to separate fans of the genre from their hard earned money (and time). The reality is this is a poorly written, poorly produced piece of manure that will have you fast asleep before the first 15-20 minutes. If you're unfortunate to still be awake after the first 15-20 minutes, you'll be subjected to the most drawn out, self-indulgent, boring drama that will have you wishing you were doing anything else but watching it. When I saw this, I witnessed audience members shifting in their seats, checking their iPhones, dozing off, anything but able to stay with this for over an hour and a half. It's really that bad. Boring story, boring performances, boring, boring, boring.

This will undoubtedly go straight to video where it will fade into the annals of the internet filed under films that nobody saw or gave a darn about.

This film will put you to sleep

[fhenderson-53458 · 2/10 · 28 April 2015]

Insomnia? Haven't been able to get a decent nights sleep in some time? Watch this film! I assure you, you'll be out before you know it. What in the world were the people behind this hot mess thinking? If they were attempting to alienate audiences with an uninteresting plot and bland storytelling, they most certainly succeeded. If they were attempting to keep an audience engaged and invested in interesting characters, they most certainly failed.

The first clue should have been that there aren't any star names in this thing, only a handful of lesser-known character actors. That's usually a dead giveaway that a film is either poorly written, poorly produced, and/or both. The crux of the problem here is the writing. It plain and simple isn't good no matter how you cut it. I'm sure these poor filmmakers didn't purposefully sit down to pen the worst western in the history of the genre, but that's exactly what they have unwittingly done.

There's nothing wrong with trying to convey your vision to an audience, I just hope that their next effort, if there is one, will keep the audience from dozing.

this film gives dreck a bad name...

[kelticcreed · 1/10 · 5 October 2015]

This is, quite possibly, one of the worst films I have ever seen. It's worst than Swept Away. It's ridiculous, boring, and poorly acted. This is the first movie I have ever walked out of before the end credits rolled.

Kane Senes' direction for starters is very unimaginative, and the camera work and editing don't have any real charm to them. The writing and concept is very hackneyed. This has to be one of the most utterly horrible scripts ever conceived by mortal minds. I mean, sweet mother of mercy, what the hell was anyone thinking when they were doing this tepid rubbish?

Set in rural post-war Texas, a cattle baron named McCluskey has lost all his cattle. There's a returning war vet named Wade who turns out to be the long-lost brother-in-law to local milquetoast Seamus Riley. The villainous McCluskey clan is stealing from the Riley clan. It takes an inordinate amount of trite and tedious scenes for this conflict to come to a head — nearly 90 minutes of Seamus scraping a razor across his scalp, rugs being cleaned, and tedious dinner scenes.

Do yourself an enormous favor and skip this detritus.

Mind numbingly dull

[cushingroyal · 2/10 · 2 October 2015]

Set in the Southern U.S. shortly after the Civil War, Echoes Of War stars James Badge Dale as a former Confederate soldier who shows up at the home of his brother-in-law, played by Ethan Embry, to visit his sister's grave and see his niece, played by Maika Monroe, and nephew, played by Owen Teague. For the majority of this film, the Hatfield/McCoy-type conflict is truly much ado about nothing. Seriously, not a thing really happens in this film. Not a thing! I probably should have thrown in the towel during the first twenty minutes and headed for the exits. Oh well.

I don't know how you can make a film this dull and expect anyone to sit through an hour and a half of it, let alone remotely like it. All I can say is, if you value your time...don't waste it on this!

2 Stars

Poorly written and stale period piece will bore your pants off.

[nylitguy · 1/10 · 15 May 2015]

Abby Garnett from the Village Voice was spot on in her review of this poorly written and executed drama. I'm not kidding, nearly 90 minutes of this film show the lead character scraping a razor across his scalp combined with tedious dinner scenes that will put a speed-freak to sleep. All the characters are under-developed with terrible Texas accents and look like the type of people you would see hanging out in a trendy NY restaurant. This is supposed to be a western/period piece for Christ's sake!

Of the five other patrons in the theater I saw it at, three of them walked out after thirty minutes. This is definitely one to avoid.

This film is exactly like what one of the coaches did in "The Voice"

[MovieIQTest · 27 May 2015]

Well, I just wonder if you ever watched NBC's singing contest program, "The Voice". Did you ever feel that you were going crazy when you listened to one of the coaches, Adam Levine? He usually got nothing to say, but that did not stop him to blah, blah and blah, blabbering with lot of hollow words, beating about the bush endlessly, like he was trapped in his own hollow words and didn't know how to stop and get out of it. Why a guy with nothing to say but still tried so hard to say something that he did not know what he was saying or talking about? So every time when its his turn to say something but couldn't find the exact words or thoughts he's trying to say but did not realize he just tried to talk about something out of nothing, at that time, you lost your temper and patience, jumped up from the sofa, yelled and screamed at the image of Adam Levin on the screen: "SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!"

Did you ever attend a college class with a lousy professor who mysteriously got the tenure to teach the students who tried to learn something but only got clueless garbled rubbish from him?

Did you ever tried to listen to some of the idiotic politicians to deliver a hollow speech in front of the voters?

This film is exactly like what I have to point out as the above-mentioned.

There was actually nothing to say, the storyline was just a very thin and short straight line; you could actually put all the words in half page. The whole movie is like it could be told all in the short synopsis out of a very very short story, but miraculously turned out to be a 600 pages big novel.

The whole movie was snail-crawling from the very beginning to the end without almost nothing to tell, so a scene of shaving head or cutting, chopping wood, walking through the forest, or woke up from nightmares, praying, press flowers between book pages, eating, skinning animals....all in close-up like slow motion crap. We also saw a camera usually followed behind the actors without any special purpose, the shaky scenes usually prolonged quite a while for nothing to tell specially.

This pathetic movie, I think, was actually written and directed by Adam Levine.

An accomplished, thought-provoking meditation on the effects of war on two families

[jsntbn · 10/10 · 7 May 2015]

I saw this film at the Dallas International Film Festival last month and thoroughly enjoyed the screening and the Q&A afterwards. The film reminded me of the novella Colomba by Prosper Merimee in the way it deals with revenge and vendetta. Although not an anti-war film, per se, the film successfully places war as the true antagonist in the story and despite being miles away from the fighting it shows the effects it has on individuals and families and in many cases bringing out the worst in them. The acting was top-notch and the award for best ensemble acting at the Dallas International Film Festival was well deserved. One scene that particularly stood out for me was between James Badge Dale and William Forsythe on the porch of the McCluskey home. The performances were understated yet full to the brim, much like the film itself. The direction didn't bring attention to itself, instead letting the story unfold in its own time, a sign of a confident hand at the helm. In that regard it reminded me of The Straight Story by David Lynch. Like all great films, it's their themes that separate them from rest of the crowd and Echoes of War will leave you thinking about its themes long after the film has ended.

UNWATCHABLE - cinematic excrement

[crapschamp · 1/10 · 7 June 2015]

Usually when a film is as bad as Echoes of War is, you can find some bright spots. But in all honesty, there are none in this film. Nada. Zip. Zilch. This film is so boring and poorly done that you have to wonder how smart the poor suckers were who put their money into this thinking they've struck gold. It's not too surprising why the cast was populated with a few B actors and relative unknowns. The performances were weak because the material was weak. The direction looked awkward and unsure. The cinematography was clumsy, the sets and costumes looked dilettante,and the score was out of place.

What they did accomplish was they hit the cinematic excrement trifecta: bad script, bad acting, bad directing.