The problem with Posse -- in addition to be too talky for a movie that seems to follow so many western tropes -- is that it wants to paint everything with a chintzy gloss that's way over the top. Now, I'm not a fan of the dirty, dusty, bland westerns that have been popular the past 25 years, either. I prefer the John Wayne variety and occasionally something like High Noon. But this movie tries to out-fantasy even those technicolor ones from the 50s and 60s that made the west seem like it wasn't just a bunch of scroungy, flea-bitten cast offs busy shooting each other in the street when not trying to brutalize People of Color.
So, what's good? Well, there's a fair amount of attention to detail, including the late 1800s Army uniforms at the beginning. Much of what we think about the cavalry in the 1860s and 70s really was a reflection of dress from decades later. The acting is reasonably good -- I say this not because anyone is bad but because the ADHD directing and script doesn't call for anything close to nuance or subtlety for scenes. This is one of those movies where you get a headache because all the characters move at a frenetic pace, like a room full of noisy, restless children all competing for attention from the adults.
There's a revenge story here -- we've seen it a million times before. The funny thing is something like The Outlaw Josey Wales does it and a bunch of people go crazy. This movie does it and they act like it is foreign territory. Of course, there may be obvious reasons.
The movie also tries to have a social conscience. The problem is that like everything else, it's over the top, to the degree that the dialogue often sounds more like a lesson than talk. I get that films like these have the double duty of trying to evoke in an audience understanding that some either pitifully lack or others are just far too aware of (to their suffering), but if everyone just trusted the story more, a lot of the dialogue wouldn't be necessary.
Anyway, as far as 1990s westerns go, this is no worse than, say, The Quick and the Dead. They look a lot like each other and were just as over the top. The funny thing, though, is the critics liked that one. Not so much this one. Golly, I wonder what's the difference?
So, what's good? Well, there's a fair amount of attention to detail, including the late 1800s Army uniforms at the beginning. Much of what we think about the cavalry in the 1860s and 70s really was a reflection of dress from decades later. The acting is reasonably good -- I say this not because anyone is bad but because the ADHD directing and script doesn't call for anything close to nuance or subtlety for scenes. This is one of those movies where you get a headache because all the characters move at a frenetic pace, like a room full of noisy, restless children all competing for attention from the adults.
There's a revenge story here -- we've seen it a million times before. The funny thing is something like The Outlaw Josey Wales does it and a bunch of people go crazy. This movie does it and they act like it is foreign territory. Of course, there may be obvious reasons.
The movie also tries to have a social conscience. The problem is that like everything else, it's over the top, to the degree that the dialogue often sounds more like a lesson than talk. I get that films like these have the double duty of trying to evoke in an audience understanding that some either pitifully lack or others are just far too aware of (to their suffering), but if everyone just trusted the story more, a lot of the dialogue wouldn't be necessary.
Anyway, as far as 1990s westerns go, this is no worse than, say, The Quick and the Dead. They look a lot like each other and were just as over the top. The funny thing, though, is the critics liked that one. Not so much this one. Golly, I wonder what's the difference?