Gunslingers

Thomas Keller is on the run after killing a Rockefeller and has become a most wanted man. He comes across a town filled with wanted men, living a new life of redemption. He is welcomed into the town and treated as their own by the town's leaders. A woman named Val arrives looking for him and it doesn't take long for a battalion to show up for Thomas and claim the bounty. The townspeople stand by their words and a war breaks out between the two party. Does Thomas surrender or the town win the war for survival, forms rest of the story.

For a Western, the film's narrative is too dull and doesn't let the characters have a decent arc. It's just that the main lead arrives at this town and they accept him. There is no space given to establish these supporting characters and the action begins sooner. The action sequences too don't stand out with non-stop gunfight and with no connections felt to these characters, it simply feels dragged. The choice to have that particular accent by Nicolas Cage was definitely questionable and he doesn't get to shine much in his supporting role. Overall, Gunslingers was dead on arrival.

I am a big fan of gritty westerns which is what this looked like in the trailers, but it is deinitely not. Within 10 minutes I realized the acting was pretty bad. There were moments of believabilty in the characters but mostly seemed like none of them were rehearsed professionals. I really blame the directing that made the whole story predictable and plodding. The effects were on par with 1970's films; bright red blood, punching sounds. By far the worst I've ever seen of Nicholas Cage. His characterization was ridiculous. So, I gave it 2 stars only because I didn't have pay to see it in a theater.

This was hot garbage. The only reason I gave it 3 stars is because I could laugh at how ridiculous it was.

• Not too far in from the start, Heather Graham, who is practically a typical southern belle, does some DIY bullet removal on her own leg - no anesthetic, raw fingers deep, and barely even whimpers (so as not to disturb her daughter). She then shows no sign of major injury for the entirety of the film.

• Cage is the absolute worst here, apparently trying to channel both Elvis and James Brown in the most ill-fitting way (even donning anachronistic cross-shaped glasses) and with a voice that's both highly grating and unintelligible. At one point he and a faceless goon lightly tumble to the ground and said goon magically breaks his neck.

• The action mostly consists of the bad and good guys lined up on opposite sides of the street firing wildly at each other with neither group able to hit the broad side of a barn unless it matters, to which you get treated to infinite quick cuts of individual cannon fodder getting shot from unrelated angles.

• The story and rest of the characters don't really matter at all.

I'm not sure if they set out to make a "so bad it's good movie" given the set of, at the very least, recognizable actors, but they definitely succeeded in a making a bad one.

I like westerns. I could say I watched them all. There were a load of bad ones over the years. Shalako and Soleil Rouge could be compared because those are somewhat weird too but have decent (great) actors. So those westerns got above 5 stars. This one however is a disgrace to all westerns and I am so sorry for all those actors who put their career in jeopardy appearing in this and hope they all were well compensated. Cage will be ok, I fear for Stallone though. This guy made already other westerns and you would think he would learn from mistakes.

I actually fail to understand why anyone could rate this 5 or more stars. 3 stars feels high already. It is really difficult to continue watching. The whole story could be told in 5 sentences.

Story: Poor. While I think the idea of the town "Redemption" and how it is run could have been exploited to make a much better story around it, but the general red line in this movie had no real surprises and everything happened exactly as expected.

Music: Music in westerns is important. It does not have to be Ennio Morricone, but it has to match the setting. It did not.

Landscape: This western is not much dusty, which is ok. It is pretty green. Nice landscape. Too much shots against the sun. Those pictures are good but this should be an action movie and not nature documentary. Disturbes the pace of the movie.

Costumes: Too clean. Feels like a TV show and not like a movie.

Acting: I actually think they really tried and those actors were all good, but either there was no directing at all or they just always took the first take. Cage character is a joke and seems he didn't care much. Dorff did good but at some point he seemed bored as well sometimes. Others probably did not get any feedback on how/what they are doing.

Dialogues: Half of them were not necessary (not even language set in 1907) but then the movie would have taken 25 minutes if some unnecessary action scenes would be dropped too.

Shooting: All action scenes were poor. The cuts were ok but angles didn't work out and if someone got shot it was either in the heart or it was a full miss. The pistols were nice and you could recognize some of them, some of the rifles even had an accurate sound. They could also count to six in this movie, so it was not all total nonsense. While the movie takes place in 1903-1907 they however talk about a cartridge invented in 1935.

Humour: None. There were no funny dialogues or funny szenes at all. Unless you could laugh about the movie in general.

Not worth to watch twice and not recommended. Watch a western of the 50ies or 60ies you haven't seen yet and you'll be entertained more.

Stephen Dorff is the main character, a gunslinger on the run hiding in a small town where all sort of wanted men come to live in peace. Bad guys come looking for him and all hell gets loose.

There's lots of action, high body count. There's blood and couple of lets cut a bullet out of somebody to save em bloody scenes.

Nic Cage does another Nic Cage character, it's a minor part but he steals the show as always. Weird voice and all, but don't worry if you don't understand some of his lines he says stuff like: "There's fiiire in hell! Hooooot fire!"

Overall it's a fine movie, the side characters and actors are fine, pacing is fine, action is fine, story is palatable. Obviously it's not the highest of budget films but there's no it looks bad low budget elements. It kept my attention and I enjoyed it.