Jane Got a Gun (2015)

A woman asks her ex-lover for help in order to save her outlaw husband from a gang out to kill him.

Director:

Gavin O'Connor

Writers:

Brian Duffield (screenplay), Anthony Tambakis (screenplay)

Stars:

Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Natalie Portman	...	Jane Hammond
Joel Edgerton	...	Dan Frost
Ewan McGregor	...	John Bishop
Noah Emmerich	...	Bill Hammond
Boyd Holbrook	...	Vic Owen
Rodrigo Santoro	...	Fitchum
James Burnett	...	Cunny Charlie
Sam Quinn	...	Slow Jeremiah
Maisie McMaster	...	Kate
Jenny Gabrielle	...	Whore
Alex Manette	...	Buck
Piper Sheets	...	Mary
Celia Kessler	...	Jig Girl
Linda Martin	...	Madame
Kristin Hansen	...	Woman #1 (as Kristen Hansen)

Storyline

Jane Got a Gun centers on Jane Hammond, who has built a new life with her husband Bill "Ham" Hammond after being tormented by the ultra-violent Bishop Boys outlaw gang. She finds herself in the gang's cross-hairs once again when Ham stumbles home riddled with bullets after dueling with the Boys and their relentless mastermind Colin. With the vengeful crew hot on Ham's trail, Jane has nowhere to turn but to her former fiancé Dan Frost for help in defending her family against certain destruction. Haunted by old memories, Jane's past meets the present in a heart-stopping battle for survival.

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Plot Keywords:

ex lover | haunted by the past | on the run | death of husband | redemption | 

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Taglines:

Strength, justice, power, vengeance.

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Genres:

Action | Drama | Western

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for violence and some language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site [Japan]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 January 2016 (USA)

Also Known As:

Armée et dangereuse

Filming Locations:

New Mexico, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$803,000, 31 January 2016, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$1,512,815, 21 February 2016

Company Credits

Production Co:

1821 Pictures,Boies / Schiller Film Group,Eaves Movie Ranch

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Joel Edgerton also starred with Ewan McGregor and Natalie Portman in the second and third installments of the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy.

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Goofs

Near the end of the movie when Jane goes into the town, Lullaby, to collect the posted bounty rewards, she is driving two brown horses who are pulling the cart which we later find out is carrying the body of the top wanted criminal she killed. Her white riding horse, seen at other times in the movie, is tethered to the rear of the cart which one can assume is the horse she will use to ride back with, although it is not saddled. When she returns with her money bags after collecting all the "wanted dead or alive" rewards, she mounts a saddled-up brown horse with something that looks like a bedroll behind the saddle and heads back to her home. When she approaches the covered wagon in which her family is waiting, the unsaddled white horse can be seen in the distance, tethered to the rear of that wagon.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Jane Hammond: [whispering a bedtime story] Callie and Decca were two sisters. They were on a boat. They're in the water, and Callie said to Decca, "Decca, will you tell me the story about the upside-down tree again please?" And Decca said, "Once upon a time, there was an upside-down tree. And anyone who walked in through the door of its trunk would be immediately turned to good if they were bad." Callie said, "I would really like to see that tree sometime." They went on and on in the water. Can ...
[...]

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Connections

Referenced in The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon: Josh Brolin/Kate McKinnon/Billy Ocean (2016)

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Soundtracks

Red River Valley
Traditional
Arranged and Performed by Squeek Steele
By arrangement with Saddle Butte Music

User Reviews

uneven, but better than the disastrous production might have led to you to believe

Jane Got a Gun is a good example of what a movie can do for you if you're going in with certain expectations, especially when they're of an exceptional variety. In the case of this, the word 'troubled' is putting it lightly for the production, as numerous stars (Fassbender quit, Jude Law was briefly hired, as was Bradley Cooper, and Edgerton actually had the role of the *villain*, not the sort of co-hero), and the director (Lynn Ramsey) left while in the midst of shooting over problems with the producer and a lack of final cut. It's the kind of production that has 'disaster' as its mark, and that's not a fair way to immediately judge a film, at least not initially. What if this was the next superb western, in a time when there seem to be a good amount considering how few westerns come out nowadays (i.e. The Hateful Eight, Bone Tomahawk, and Slow West all in the past year or so)?

So I went into this with an open mind, to see what is in front of me (via Warrior director Gavin O'Connor) and left with the opinion that simply... it's OK. Sometimes a little more than OK, and mostly thanks to a game cast. The premise is somewhat simple initially, that a woman finds that her husband (Natalie Portman and Noah Emmerich respectively) has been shot and though she's tending to her wounds she realizes from him more men are coming after him, so she goes and hires a man (Joel Edgerton) who she used to know... actually in some intimate ways.

The movie has a flashback structure that is not really too new. Matter of fact, by 2016 this sort of thing has become kind of tired; of course the drama is meant to be this siege that develops at their home: they can't ride away since Emmerich's Bill Hammond is too injured, so they'll have to set up some things to make sure they aren't caught like fish in a barrel when Ewan McGregor and his men come. But the bigger issue is that the movie has just a lot of peaks and valleys as far as compelling scenes; when people do pull guns on one another and there's set-up with that we see (the plan to fortify the outside of Jane's home with liquid explosives and such is clever), it's exciting.

What seemed to not work quite so well are the quieter scenes, where confessions are made and that drama has to be tapped as to who did what to who in relationships and the old wounds being scorched. There is one really tumultuous sequence where Bill discovers Jane inside of what seems to be a brothel (or it just is) and after he kills a bunch of people she starts sobbing. Moments of high drama register but it's the quiet moments that fall a little flat, or they don't register as they should in a movie that depends on their quiet moments for impact. And it's not so much the actors at fault - Portman and Edgerton are formidable, and McGregor makes a fine figure with that mustache (a bit of a chip off the Val Kilmer in Tombstone block), and one of America's underrated character actors, Noah Emmerich, is terrific even as a lot of his performance is post-shooting in a bed - but with the script.

Strange since the screenplay was originally on the "Black-List" (best scripts produced that got submitted, across the world basically), and Edgerton actually did work on the script too (whether this was before the production problems or during I'm sure I don't know). It's hard to know if it was due to the producers not allowing final cut - a big reason why Ramsey left, which might have been wise - but as a Weinstein Company release it seems a little fishy, like there may have been better material that got left out or moments put together that don't quite fit.

And yet for all these odd feelings watching it, overall I would recommend it to fans of Westerns (believe me, I've seen weaker offerings), and the climax is really solid. James Got a Gun has some original moments, and yet wrestles with becoming generic at the same time: bad-asses pulling guns on one another has been done for so long and in such gritty tones. Maybe it's missing... a tiny bit of humor(?) It's a strange movie to peg what doesn't work about it, but it's not all bad. For all the hard times it took to get to being completed, I'm glad it exists in some form.