Dead for a Dollar (2022) User Reviews

I had high expectations for this movie. What a disappointment.

[imseeg · 5/10 · 30 September 2022]

Terrific director, with a star cast of actors, I was really waiting for this movie to be released and my expectations were pretty high. What a disappointment...

The bad: the first thing I noticed was that the photography was average (at best). Almost tv quality (low level). THAT I am not used to when watching Walter Hill movies which usually have got terrific technical details. Not this time around. Even the sound score sounded average. Bummer.

But even worse the acting performances by Cristophter Waltz and Willem Dafoe were bland. As if they were speed reading their lines without any real gusto.

This looks pretty much like a Corona era movie that has been recently released and has suffered from production and money problems, because I really get the feel this movie was somehow rushed. Bummer.

A Great Disservice for the Diminishing Western Genre

[ikadery · 4/10 · 30 September 2022]

Willem Dafoe, Christoph Waltz, and Rachel Brosnahan- by looking at the top billing of this film and the name of the director, it's not wrong to expect a decent film. But this movie fails at almost every aspect, from the cookie-cutter revisionist western storyline to bad editing, it's atrocious, maybe only apart from the acting. There are so many unnecessary scenes that even someone who doesn't know the ABC of film editing would agree to the fact that there are so many needless scenes. And also, this film feels like it's overrun by at least 20 mins, good editing would've kept the runtime under 90 mins, just like most of Budd Boetticher's famous westerns, whom this film is dedicated to.

A Politically Correct Western

[ricardojorgeramalho · 6/10 · 3 January 2023]

A return to the old western formula by the hands of the experienced Walter Hill, who, at eighty years of age, is still writing and directing, and the roookie (in westerns I mean) Christoph Waltz, who produces and interprets, also counting on the charismatic Willem Defoe in the role of the villain.

Waltz does surprisingly well in the role of the bounty hunter, more Lee Van Cleef than Clint Eastwood, but still convincing. Also Willem Defoe is comfortable in the role of the gunslinger.

The problem is that the argument seems a little fragile, in the twists and turns that lead to a predictable ending, and also a bit politically correct, in the inclusion of suffragette women and emancipated blacks in the territory of overbearing Mexican landowners.

Sign of the times, even a western has to be inclusive and politically correct. But something is lost, with so much contemporaneity.

Just awful.

[Dodge-Zombie · 2/10 · 15 May 2023]

Sometimes when you have the right ingredients you make something that doesn't work. For example, cheese, lemon and raspberries could be used to make a delicious cheesecake with raspberry sauce. It could also be used to make a god awful pizza.

In case you miss my point here what I mean is simply that the ingredients in this movie may all be good elsewhere but here simply don't go together.

There's no passion in this movie at all. Its just people reading lines. Half of them badly written lines.

If you want to watch a great Walther Hill film I'd suggest going back 35 years or more.

This does not do his legacy any justice.

Dismissed.

Solid, old fashioned western

[gnianello · 7/10 · 20 December 2022]

Great to see Walter Hill still has the touch. A well acted and solid western. Many harsh reviews here. I don't know what movie they were watching or expected. Obviously, a low budget film, but so what. Not overly stylistic, more of an old school western and thoroughly enjoyable.

Waltz always solid and a nice performance by Defoe. Supporting cast and Bratt very entertaining.

Hopefully, Hill will get another chance, but in today's Hollywood probably not gonna happen. As an old fashioned western fan and admirer of Hill's career, I recommend this film. Don't be deterred by the overly critical reviews you see here.

Dead of Boredom for Under a Dollar

[shuswap-83557 · 3/10 · 1 October 2022]

Considering the cast of excellent actors and a reputable director it's hard to imagine this western turning out as unwatchable as it appears it is. Most dusters have a mix of character development and action and this one one is about 96% filler with scenes about nothing. This film could've used the help of a Quentin Tarantino to add some inspiration to an actual story. To categorize this movie as a thriller western is a blatant fabrication of fact. And the set production was abysmally cheap. What were they thinking here on a shoestring budget? Every scene is talky like some kind of Broadway play yet lacking in any witty banter which is typically required when it's just a stage play. This is a real waste of time and talented actors.

A Western for Western fans

[donmccandless-86320 · 7/10 · 7 October 2022]

I read the poor reviews, and I think I saw a different movie. Either that, or those who don't like Westerns because . . . They're Westerns, decided to vent their frustrations after junk like Batgirl, The 4400 remake, the Bros flick, and the other Hollywood trendy junk people don't want fell flat. Who knows?

This is Walter Hill being Walter Hill. Gritty, realistic, devoid of Technicolor fluff. The landscape is unpleasant, uninviting, because that's what it is in this area of the southwest. People are living on the hard edge, because there isn't much else.

This tale, in the mold of The Professionals and The Wild Bunch, is not in the same category as The Undefeated. There's no sweetness and light, just the reality people of this era faced.

The acting is fine, the script is good, and the directing, that's Walter Hill. My only knock on this one, the same lighting and filtering used in the exteriors was applied to the interior shots in a way that's noticeable. That's not something one should notice.

A bad film in so many ways

[beatrice_gangi · 3/10 · 15 September 2022]

Dead for a dollar is a hilarously awful movie, so much so that it seems to be a parody of the western genre itself. Script craters are juxtaposed with awkward dialogue, a dated view of feminism and racism, and underwhelming performances by usually phenomenal actors. All peppered with technical errors visible even by those who detain no special knowledge in this field. It is difficult to find even one aspect of the film to compliment, perhaps only the fact that unlike many of today's releases, it has the decency to stay under two hours in length. In any case, it remains a light and entertaining movie to watch for all its errors, as a lesson in how a film usually should not be made.

Simple, straight, old-school styled sepia-toned Western from old master Walter Hill

[danieljfarthing · 7/10 · 16 October 2022]

In old-school-style 1890's-based Western "Dead For A Dollar" Christoph Waltz & Warren Burke head to Mexico after Brandon Scott who's abducted (or ran off with) Rachel Brosnahan (excellent), wife of sleazy tycoon Hamish Linklater. They all converge (with Waltz's nemesis Willem Defoe) in a small dust-bowl town in the territory of crime-lord Benjamin Bratt & his gang (inc Luis Chávez) where shoot-out show-downs beckon. Stylishly shot in sepia tones by iconic veteran action writer / director Walter Hill (his first film in six yrs (and only second in ten)) it's simple & straight but decent fare, especially for those who don't necessarily need their Westerns to be 'modernized'.

A very disappointing late-career outing from Hill

[BestBenedikt · 3/10 · 2 October 2022]

Walter Hill making a Western with Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe? Count me in! At least that's what I was thinking before I saw the trailer, which was already a little underwhelming, to say the least.

Unfortunately, the first impression didn't deceive: Everything here feels amateurish almost beyond belief. From the "color grading", which is really just a sepia filter reminiscent of FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 3, to the cinematography, the most obvious CGI blood and smoke as well as the editing with its constant and obnoxious fade-outs. If anyone would have told me that this is an amateur production made for YouTube, I would have believed them in an instant.

The story is as generic as they come, the writing especially in the first act extremely uninspired, accompanied by wooden acting. If Christoph Waltz playing a bounty hunter sounds promising and somewhat exciting to you, make no mistake: He is the blandest I have ever seen him here. Always a joy to watch though and probably the only bright spot in this mess is Willem Dafoe - although his character ultimately surves no purpose for the main narrative.

It's always baffling to witness former great directors reaching late-career lows - Brian De Palma would come to mind here. The problem isn't that Hill tried to make a B movie, as he successfully did before. DEAD FOR A DOLLAR is unfortunately just bad.

Can the Western come back

[Ken5150k9 · 8/10 · 9 October 2022]

With all the cheap B westerns lately, finally a decent one comes along.

The cast is superb. You can't beat Christoph Waltz. He does a great job as the bounty hunter. Rachel Brosnahan played her part as a strong female character. I really liked seeing Willem Dafoe in a new movie.

It has a good story. Complements to the writer, director and casting agency. The movie was entertaining to watch.

It didn't have that big Hollywood feel but I enjoyed it very much.

Coming from 50 years of watching a lot of westerns.

I'm afraid after the mishap with Alex Baldwins movie "Rust", we may never see another decent western.

Walter is back!

[horrorules · 7/10 · 20 March 2023]

Walter Hill is back with a solid old school western.

Unfortunately, films of this type are no longer made, today we are invaded by the rubbish of Marvel, by dozens of useless and pathetic reboots and remakes and in fact this film ignored by most of the public lobotomized by the great empty and soulless blockbusters.

Hill, on the other hand, packs an exquisitely retro, dark and funny film at the right point with a wonderful cast, above all obviously the always immense Christoph Waltz who plays a character very similar to the one he played in Django Unchained, but also Willem Dafoe and the beautiful and talented Rachel Brosnahan give some really good performances.

A film that goes straight to its purpose without getting lost in chatter, without lasting 3 hours (which today seems mandatory), but the usual hour and forty-five as it used to be.

My advice is not to waste time with yet another Creed, with Top Gun 2 or with the cinecomics rubbish, but rather watch this solid film, which is certainly not a masterpiece, but it is undoubtedly a very good film, better than 90% of the trash that Hollywood produces today.

Great cast but oddly realised, falling short of expectations.

[amesmonde · 5 October 2022]

With the help of a solider a bounty hunter takes a job to search for a businessman' wife who has been kidnapped by a deserter.

Walter Hill returns to directing delivering a bitter sweet Western. Hill offers tension, twists, whippings and shootouts with a great cast including Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, Brandon Scott, Warren Burke and Benjamin Bratt to name a few. Waltz and Defoe are on form; but Scott is a screen stealer. Writers Matt Harris and Hill's story has all the Western high jinx you'd want from a genre piece. However, considering Hills past work, the camera work is lacklustre, shaky, the sound design, the scene transitions and colour timing is off, giving it a rough low budget TV feel. This sucks the life out of the great locations sets and costumes that not even the fitting traditional score can lift.

Overall, if your expecting the grandeur of great Western's you may be left disappointed, however, it offers top performances and a good old fashion western yarn.

Terrible

[badgolfer-02332 · 2/10 · 2 November 2023]

What a waste of good actors. Christopher Waltz is wasted in this. It's pretty much what you might expect from Hollywood these day. A move made in the 21st century, about events of the 19th century, portraying 19th century people as if they thought like 21st century Leftists. It had potential, but the production values and the dialogue are atrocious. B movie material, at best. It's sad to see Waltz in such nonsense., The script is awful and the direction is that of a film school student who would graduate in the middle of his class. Will someone please make a good western? The Magnificent Seven remake was almost there, but there really hasn't been a good western since Forgiven, and we can't depend on Clint to make another one.

Walter Hill goes woke.

[radhrh · 3/10 · 1 October 2022]

And it's not a pretty sight. In case you didn't know, Walter Hill is a legendary director known for such classics as Southern Comfort, The Warriors, 48 Hours, Last Man Standing and Crossroads. He hasn't made much recently so I was really excited to hear of Dead for a Dollar. I was further encouraged by Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe taking on the roles of protagonist and antagonist respectably. However I was badly disappointed by the result. Apparently based on true events, Dead for a Dollar is a low budget badly written western with heavy overtones of racism and sexism. Christoph Waltz doesn't give a convincing performance as the bounty hunter with a heart however Willem Dafoe does better. The rest of the cast are as wooden as the appalling sets and the whole is shot with all the visual flair of a PSA regarding hemeroids.

Solid good old fashioned western

[chrislawuk · 7/10 · 26 December 2022]

Sure, the film falls short in many aspects. Could have made better use of Willem Dafoe character, especially the demise scene. He had some great acting moments in this movie though, as if born for the Western. Always been a fan of Walter Hill, and this just being a Walter Hill film, raises it in my eyes. I enjoyed the script foe the most part, the acting, and the general pacing of the movie. It does feel a bit studio produced, with very crisp digitally feeling shots, not quite as dusty and dirty as maybe it should be. There is also a very minimalistic soundtrack, which makes the whole thing feel a bit like a TV movie. Still, it' s a enjoyable movie, reminiscent of the Spaghetti Westerns of old.

Dead for a Dollar Budget

[lovemytripsuk · 5/10 · 6 June 2023]

With the title I thought I might be getting a reimagined Spaghetti Wester - but unfortunately not. The script felt rushed - the acting was wooden and the movie was totally without tension. All the fight scenes were rushed, and there was little character development. Christoph Waltz struggles to convince as an expetienced bounty hunter and his supposed nemesis played by Willem Defoe is a little too likeable. It feels as though everything about this film was rushed, from the script writing through to the production, the direction and the acting! Even the few action sequences are rushed - with zero tension!

Not sure what this was

[themonk-97176 · 6/10 · 4 October 2022]

I'd start by saying Waltz, Dafoe, Bratt and the others are great actors. All did a great job with what they had here. Problem is, not sure what they had here.

The scenes were a bit choppy and kept waiting for a tv commercial to play between them.

Pretty sure I nodded off at one point and missed some, but it made no difference.

This was a western, I think, but not one I'd recommend for western movie watchers. The actors are top notch but just couldn't save it.

I would have tried for a spaghetti western vibe over this 50s American tv series type. The scenes with Waltz and Dafoe were good but the writing, no sir, I didn't like it.

It was simply too elementary. Ah well, better luck next time.

Awful.

[CineviewUK · 1/10 · 7 October 2022]

I can't believe this came from Walter Hill. Has he had a stroke? Every aspect of this is unbelievably bland and unexciting. I'd expect from a veteran filmmaker that you'd know better than to have 20 million dissolves between scenes, even parts of dialogue - also at least have some knowledge of how to build tension, character and draw the audience in. None of that is present here.

The sound and cinematography are second rate at best, almost as if their contribution was phoned in by assistants.

But the most disappointing are the performances from Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe. They seem uninspired, uninterested.

If you paid to see this I am sorry you wasted your money, because that is exactly what it is in every respect.

Avoid at all costs.

old fashioned western

[cdcrb · 7/10 · 9 October 2022]

Hey guys. Remember westerns. Nah. You're all way too young. But in the 50's and early 60's the air waves were full of them. Seven nights a week. At one time 15 of the top thirty shows were westerns. So in many a home it was like a clock work orange. Our eyes were clamped open to westerns, westerns, westerns. We were finally saved by mary tyler moore and mash. Anyway this is a classic western with some "modern additions". Like people of color north of the border. Anyway, it's basically a gunsmoke episode. Only christopher waltz is matt dillon. He kills all the bad guys and rides off into the sunset. Really. That's it. A western.

Westerns are fun when everyone is treated equally

[itakethesquare · 3/10 · 3 October 2022]

Westerns are great. The older the better. The only reason I give this a 3/10 is because the first few minutes of the movie has that fast paced one-liners followed by shooting. It wasn't a great place to live long but my gosh was it a place.

The female lead is super annoying and serious and mentions how she is super intelligent and not "traditionally moral" and then tries to validate her sleeping with her student (which is a big problem with female teachers and underage males) -- and she is a total depiction of the current culture. She ruined the movie and deducted 5 points altogether.

Waltz and Dafoe are fine, they are naturals at what they do so no complaints there. As I said before, 3 points for them adding immersion.

Hollywood really loves to put rosaries and attack religion (one of them nowadays) unnecessarily on antagonists and it's becoming a trope. Absolute biased nonsense. Watch if you want, but this was a waste of time.

NOT AS BAD AS THE REVIEWS SAY

[sharimohan-655-178637 · 8/10 · 2 October 2022]

I Quite enjoyed the film, the cast was worth half the rating and the plot was quite interesting. Looks like some reviews are plainly off mark or the reviewers haven't seen enough westerns to enjoy it. I feel Hill was working on a shoestring budget, probably a bigger studio may have made the result more positive. Yes some stars in the film are more known today as support cast but they are great actors and they have responded positively in the film. I would have preferred a little more pace in the narrative like the older westerns but the art of storytelling decides on that I guess, a little more action may have kept the audiences glued I suppose. Overall a refreshing western after a long time.

Looked very cheap.

[deloudelouvain · 6/10 · 16 October 2022]

Well what to say about Dead For A Dollar? It was for sure not Walter Hill's best movie. Sometimes it looked very cheap and not only because of the decor. I thought there were a lot of bad decisions made by the editing team. Fading out from one scene to another, it didn't look good, itlooked like a cheap soap episode, a television movie of low quality. The colour tones were also not the best choice, made it look done by amateurs again. Disappointing for Walter Hill. The cast wasn't bad, well at least not all of them. Willem Dafoe and Christoph Waltz are both actors that can do very well in such roles, and they were not really disappointing but since the quality of certain scenes was quite low their acting didn't really made the movie good. You could say we were lucky with them, with any other mediocre actor this movie would have completely plummeted. The story had potential for a good western but the execution wasn't what to expected. It's watchable but it should have been much better.

Big Names, Low Budget

[krenwregget · 5/10 · 7 October 2022]

When I saw that Willem Dafoe and Christoph Waltz were starring together in a western, I was interested. Both are great actors and while they do give fine performances, it's not enough to levitate this film above mediocrity.

The story serves well enough to move things along and most are adequate in their roles but the photography is so flat, colours so drained and sets look more like a cheap soap opera than a feature film.

However, if you want nothing more than to kill some time in a forgettable and inoffensive way with western-style vistas and mild gun play, you could do worse... as long as you pay less than a dollar.

5/10.

Dry. Boring. Poorly written.

[derrick-dj · 3/10 · 25 January 2023]

This movie was a boring, poorly written wannabe old style western. The characters are dumb. The story is dumb. The pacing almost put me to sleep. It has a few and very few good spots. It is a waste of some very good actors. It is also a waste of almost 2 hours. It was predictable. It felt like a story a lucky grown up would write because he saw a western when he was a kid and someone gave him a lot of money and too much time on their hands. The characters were so one dimensional when they turned sideways I couldn't see them. When people give a movie good scores while wearing nostalgia glasses they dismissed what makes a movie good and that is story, pacing, visuals and great acting.