More a short film than an actual film, "The Last Rites of Ransom Pride" tries to distinguish itself as a Western that seems to challenge just about every convention that Westerns used to stand for.
The question is, is that really a good idea? The plot, in a nutshell, is as follows: a woman (Juliette Flowers) is trying to recover the body of her deceased lover (Ransom Pride) from a malformed mystic, who will turn the body over, as long as she gets in return the brother (Champ Pride) of the deceased lover.
We really don't know why Champ is important to the mystic...or even why she's holding the body of Ransom Pride in the first place...although we are given a rather difficult to follow explanation in the end if you make it that far. If anything, the explanation makes events that happen in the film seem even more unusual!
Just as unusual is the idea that Champ's Father Early (Dwight Yoakam) hates Champ for what happened to his wife, who died when Champ was born. In fact, he makes a pilgrimage to recover both Champ AND Ransom's body from the mystic...after he discovered that Juliette was planning on trading Champ for Ransom's body.
Naturally he holds a grudge against Juliette, who he blames for Ransom's death, and suckering Champ into servitude, so he plans to kill her...until he is shot dead...by Champ!
This film is plagued by several factors, among them:
I'd put the running time of the film officially at around 80 minutes...but if you were to trim out the scenes that make no sense and those strange rewinding segments, I suspect you'd cut that down to between 50-60 minutes!
Jon Foster is absolutely gorgeous in the film...and Scott Speedman and Lizzy Caplan aren't terrible to look at. It's just a little eye candy, but it's no where near enough to save THIS film!
The question is, is that really a good idea? The plot, in a nutshell, is as follows: a woman (Juliette Flowers) is trying to recover the body of her deceased lover (Ransom Pride) from a malformed mystic, who will turn the body over, as long as she gets in return the brother (Champ Pride) of the deceased lover.
We really don't know why Champ is important to the mystic...or even why she's holding the body of Ransom Pride in the first place...although we are given a rather difficult to follow explanation in the end if you make it that far. If anything, the explanation makes events that happen in the film seem even more unusual!
Just as unusual is the idea that Champ's Father Early (Dwight Yoakam) hates Champ for what happened to his wife, who died when Champ was born. In fact, he makes a pilgrimage to recover both Champ AND Ransom's body from the mystic...after he discovered that Juliette was planning on trading Champ for Ransom's body.
Naturally he holds a grudge against Juliette, who he blames for Ransom's death, and suckering Champ into servitude, so he plans to kill her...until he is shot dead...by Champ!
This film is plagued by several factors, among them:
- Unusual action edits which, after an action scene takes place, are for some reason reversed and choppy.
- A strange assortment of characters, including the mystic (who looks more like a Voodoo practitioner than a Native American or Mexican priestess), a little person, a drunken black veteran of the Civil War (I think) and pot smoking siamese twins.
- Other scenes, which don't seem to make any sense at all, except if you consider them in the film to expand on the running time.
I'd put the running time of the film officially at around 80 minutes...but if you were to trim out the scenes that make no sense and those strange rewinding segments, I suspect you'd cut that down to between 50-60 minutes!
Jon Foster is absolutely gorgeous in the film...and Scott Speedman and Lizzy Caplan aren't terrible to look at. It's just a little eye candy, but it's no where near enough to save THIS film!