by Oscar O’Sullivan

Monday – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

As the 1960s drew to a close and the writing was seemingly on the wall for the Hollywood Western, there was a sense that any Western released was a farewell tour. While some directors chose to put the genre to bed with deconstructions that tore down the mythic artifice of the Old West on film, some celebrated the fantasy one last time. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid is the best of both worlds. Set in the twilight of the Old West, just before mechanisation changed the face of the country forever, it’s the story of the last true outlaws, Butch and Sundance, as they cling to a way of life that no longer exists. As sad as this is, the film is far from grim revisionism – it celebrates the fantasy of the hero outlaw and the idyllic, unspoilt world they inhabit. This isn’t a tale of the modern world consuming the old one – it’s fantasy breaking up against cold, hard reality. Our heroes are living in an endless daydream, free of responsibilities, their carefree nature conveyed through jaunty musical montages. They’re celebrities, beloved by all and untouchable by any sort of consequence – until they aren’t. Their world is getting smaller, opportunities fewer and further between, age beginning to worry them, so they push their luck one step too far. From the moment they hit that train, everything begins to crumble. Their gang is broken up and their hiding spots made unsafe as modernity, represented by an unseen railway baron and his faceless minions, finally comes for the last outlaws, pursuing them relentlessly across the West until they are forced to leave it behind entirely. Starting over again as bandits in rural Bolivia, they can’t help but keep pushing their luck. Paul Newman and Robert Redford have exceptional chemistry as the title duo, every exchange carrying the implication of an entire unseen history. Newman as Butch is a man who prides himself on his cleverness and ingenuity – even as age slows him down his mind races with possibilities, his spirit never flagging in the face of their mounting problems. But at the same time, his relentless optimism is what keeps him and Sundance from truly moving on. Giving up the outlaw lifestyle and truly disappearing from history would be a worse failure than being caught, an admittance of defeat. Sundance feels the same way – even though he’s younger than his buddy, he’s even more set in his ways, more proud and unchangeable. The difference is that his commitment to their path comes from a place of pessimism, a refusal to entertain the idea that things could be better. They’re a bad influence on each other for sure, reinforcing each other’s refusal to change, but their friendship is the only constant they can rely on. Even their shared love interest will only stick with them so far – she’s smart enough to know when the jig is up, and refuses to stick around for the inevitable bloody conclusion. The famous ending is the film’s last small mercy for the characters – leaving them frozen forever in myth, safe at last from the reality that couldn’t abide their existence. It is possible to be nostalgic for a world that never really existed – that’s film for you. 10/10.

Tuesday – Paint Your Wagon

What was the thought process behind this film? The Western was on it’s last legs both critically and commercially, while musicals had become oversaturated in the 60s, and were about to be laid low by changing tastes in both music and film as the 1970s loomed. So who in their right mind thought that a cowboy musical was a good idea in this era? Paint Your Wagon is a disastrous film, a confused production that only has value today as a curiosity. It’s not bad enough to be fun, not kitsch enough to be reclaimed, too goofy and fantastical for the Western canon and too dull for musical fans. The songs are mediocre and there’s no dance choreography to speak of, with the visual centrepiece being the complete tactile destruction of the town where it takes place. It’s a film that would likely be entirely forgotten if not for the fact that it starred Clint Eastwood as one of the leads. If that sounds like strange casting, Eastwood seems to agree, spending the whole film visibly confused as to what he’s doing here. But surprisingly, he can really sing – he brings a smooth, soothing tone to his ballads. Co-lead Lee Marvin has the opposite issue – he can’t hold a tune to save his life, shouting his way through his interludes, but is having a ball with his performance, joyously comedic and physically engaged. It’s fun to see these actors under such odd circumstances, but the two-and-a-half hour runtime beats a lot of the joy out of things, and there’s not much here worth revisiting for fans of either genre. 4/10.

Wednesday – Two Mules for Sister Sara

A gruff, cynical cowboy finds himself babysitting a naive nun as they journey across revolutionary Mexico – it’s a premise that couldn’t possibly fail to entertain. The scenario makes excellent use of Eastwood’s usual drifter persona, bouncing comedy beats off of him but never undermining the core of the character for cheap laughs. Shirley McLaine as the unfortunate nun is a delight – playing the goodhearted piousness of the character entirely over the top and subtly dropping hints that she’s not as innocent as she lets on. The back and forth between the leads is as good as any romcom, the begrudging bodyguard flirting and teasing relentlessly, while Sister Sara coyly lets his jabs slide before catching him off guard with her own brand of innocent needling. It really is a romcom more than anything else, with a Western coat of paint, but when it does shift gears into cowboy action it delivers the goods on that front too. Bridges are blown up and banditos blown away, while the finale becomes almost a different film, a full-scale war with gatling guns, dynamite and bloody dismemberment where our leads almost fade into the periphery. There may not be anything visually striking or thematically deep, but it’s an enjoyable odyssey with two delightful leads, and what more could you ask for from a movie about a cowboy and a nun falling in love? 8/10.

Thursday – Little Big Man

Like Tim Burton’s Big Fish meets Killers of the Flower Moon, this is a stunningly effective blend of comical tall-tale folklore with somber historical examination. Dustin Hoffman goofs and bumbles his way through improbable scenarios, becoming a snake-oil salesman and a gunslinger and a cavalry scout, but always finds himself coming back to the Native American tribe that raised him and gave him his name. The Pawnee are the only truly good people in the film, even if they have their quirks, and Hoffman’s performance reflects the character’s history with them – when he is out trying to fit into the world of the white man he is comical, absurd, but when he is back with the Pawnee his acting becomes naturalistic. While the representation in the film may not be perfect, it’s empathy is undeniable, as it openly condemns the vainglorious General Custer and the genocide he stood for. The village massacre is harrowing, all the more so because of it’s contrast with the comedic scenes it immediately follows. That push and pull is what the film is all about, history and reality in dialogue, fact and fiction blending together in the memories of a man trying to sum up an entire life. The important memories are vivid and intense, the rest half-remembered or fabricated outright, and it doesn’t matter what’s true and false anymore – soon nobody will remember it at all. 9/10.

Friday – Duck, You Sucker

Set during the Mexican Revolution, Duck, You Sucker follows an expatriate Irish rebel who ropes a gang of mercenary bandits into freeing political prisoners for the cause. While the bandit leader has no illusions about the righteousness or heroism of the cause, his determination to find his fortune sees him drawn deeper into a cause he couldn’t care a toss for. The Irish rebel, meanwhile, is almost as cynical, his only connection to the cause being a desire to kill as many imperialists as he inevitably blows himself to kingdom come. Neither man has his patriotism or love for the cause revitalised – what they instead find is an unlikely friendship, a camaraderie that keeps them going when everything else goes to shit. Leone has no interest in the politics of revolution, only the violence, the men who believe in something and the men who believe in nothing equally capable of destruction and death, and by the end it’s nearly impossible to tell who is shooting who and for what reason. As Leone films go, it doesn’t have the narrative depth or emotional weight of his best work, but it’s as visually powerful as anything else he made, his usual rhythm of desolate wide shots and extreme close-ups punctuated with every other camera trick you can imagine. The Morricone score is unusually jaunty but memorable for it, suiting the off-beat tone, and he still locks in for the dramatic beats. Even weak Leone is better than anything most directors could ever make. 8/10.

Saturday – Hit Man

At what point does a role we play begin to become a real part of ourselves? Glen Powell cycles through an impressive stable of cartoon personas in his role as a fake assassin here, but only one persona really sticks – the one that gets him laid. The film doesn’t go overboard in spelling out the gradual bleeding of his personalities, but is maybe too subtle in that regard – the idea works but it doesn’t amaze. Powell is at his best when he’s in disguise, showing off his range of bit part comedy characters. The core of his character is less endearing, the usual “Hollywood hunk puts on glasses and plays at shyness”, an insincere display of humility that he can triumphantly cast off as his character gains confidence through his dishonest romance with a Adria Arjona. She’s fantastic in an underwritten role, sexy and slightly ditzy, strangely comfortable with murder, filling in the gaps in the writing with the charisma of her performance and physical chemistry with Powell. The twists and turns of the plot don’t come to much and the two villainous characters could have easily been combined for clarity, but the scenario is compelling enough to see through and the dialogue has an undeniable spark to it, that difficult balance of having characters be witty and intelligent without them feeling false. Not great, but a lot of fun. 7/10.

Sunday – The 40 Year Old Virgin, The Other Guys and Zatoichi Challenged

The sad reality of Steve Carrell’s character in this film feels increasingly prescient as the years pass – what was once an absurd model of loserdom is now the average lifestyle of the modern man. Surrounded by toys and other childish things, he lives safely in an eternal adolescence, a rejection of the adulthood that he feels unequipped for. His only social life is with his co-workers, because he never goes out of his own accord – a problem even more prevalent in the modern day as the internet replaces real-world interaction. And then there’s his fear of anything sexual – think of the puritanical backlash to sex scenes in movies. It may seem trite and obvious, but the advice this film offers is sound – you won’t catch anything unless you chase it, and you’ll never grow up if you live your life in a sanitised playhouse. Of course the film was never meant to be a sermon, but comedy is often more truthful than even it’s writers may realise. 10/10.

Despite action comedies having become the dominant genre this decade, the biggest films always seem to make one half or or the other feel like an afterthought. The Other Guys isn’t the most hilarious film ever made, and it’s not exceptional as action films go, but what it has is the perfect balance. The buddy-cop format is naturally suited to character-based comedy, and this film tips the usual dynamics over into absurd territory, while the action is thought-out and tangible enough to give the film a sheen of legitimacy that contrasts beautifully with the irreverence of the dialogue. The film also shows the first symptoms of director Adam McKay’s impending plunge into political filmmaking – the financial crime that the detectives must solve is mostly a function of the plot, but the end-credits infographics about corporate greed feel like a test-run for The Big Short. Any political theming here is purely accidental, as the focus remains squarely on the odd-couple dynamic of Ferrell and Wahlberg as they learn to balance their conflicting personalities for the greater good. Michael Keaton is hilarious as their put-upon captain, and everyone owes it to themselves to at least watch the magnificent “aim for the bushes” scene. 8/10.

Director Kenji Misumi returns to the series for the fourth time with this straightforward but solid entry, Zatoichi Challenged. Once again the series pulls from past scenarios (Zatoichi protects a child, befriends a samurai, battles a conspiracy and saves a wrongfully imprisoned man), and it does being to feel like you’ve seen it all before, with even the telling being only slightly different. This film makes it’s mark on the canon with it’s ending – while usually the credits will roll shortly after Zatoichi finishes wiping out his two-dozen Yakuza opponents, that’s not enough this time. While he has fought 1v1 duels in the past, they’re usually over in a flash, with the drama coming from our hero’s connection to whoever he’s cutting down. The final confrontation in the snow with the samurai here adds nearly ten minutes to the runtime, a genuine back-and-forth between the blind swordsman and perhaps the worthiest opponent he’s ever faced. The film as a whole is fine if forgettable, but this ending pushes it up a notch. 7/10.