Smoking Gun - Nicht jede Frau will gerettet werden

My wife and I watched this at home on DVD from our public library. I wanted to see it mainly for the actors, knowing little about the actual story.

It was written and directed by the Zellner brothers, and each has a featured role in the movie. The basic story is a man, Robert Pattinson as Samuel, heads west to find his damsel who he thinks has been kidnapped. He plans to rescue her and ask her to marry him. The damsel is Mia Wasikowska as Penelope.

The opening scene sets the tone, David Zellner plays a man new to the west, fascinated by the prospect of meeting real Indians, and waits for the stagecoach with an old pioneer (Robert Forster) who is tired and headed east. The stagecoach doesn't show up but the old man gives away his belongings including a tattered bible, so the new man takes on the name Parson Henry.

There is no advantage in describing the story in greater detail, suffice to say Samuel has a total misunderstanding of the situation and it doesn't turn out well for him. When the movie was over we were both a bit puzzled as to why this particular story was put to film and what the filmmakers were really trying to accomplish.

I cannot recommend it to anyone I know.

This western is different because of its low body count, but that is more due to the low number of characters in the wilderness. The pace is slow, and the characters are not so sympathetic. I found it rather dull and boring.

"The Old West is not a certain place in a certain time; it's a state of mind. It's whatever you want it to be. -" Tom Mix

I should have liked the Zellner brothers' Western comedy, Damsel, much better than I did. It has elements of Mel Brooks and the Coen brothers when they mine the satire of a genre very long in the tooth. The difference: writing.

Brooks with his inspired goofiness (Blazing Saddles) and the Coens with their light-hearted larceny (Raising Arizona), have characters using language much smarter than they are, whereas The Zellners' lines are deadpan but dull even though they use elevated diction as the Coens so often do. Using contemporary lingo like "win win" and "real deal" doesn't titillate as it should. In addition, Zellners' language lacks strong affinity with bigger issues.

Samuel (Robert Pattinson), a rich pioneer, engages a sham preacher, Henry (David Zellner), to officiate at Samuel's wedding to Penelope (Mia Wasikowska). In their journey with a miniature horse, gift to Penelope (not the waiting Penelope of the Odyssey), the two must deal with their naiveté and the vagaries of raw Western staples like rot-gut whiskey, duplicitous Indians, and bad campfire ballads (Samuel's ballad to Penelope, called My Honeybun, is a weak companion to Brooks' notorious campfire scene)

While this set-up is rich fodder for satire, most of the jokes fall as flat as Penelope's affect and as dry as the joke about a fool in a barrel being strung up for no obvious reasons. Westerns are ripe for satire, but the flat line here comes not from the fine performances but the tepid minimalist script and uninspired cinematography.

Wasikowska is marvelous as the independent and bitter love interest, Pattinson showing once again that he is much more than a teen heart-throb. The Zellners have the right motif about loneliness; they just need to beef up the languid language and droll action.

It was very slow and boring at first, especially I found the speech scenes at the beginning of the movie meaningless but I must say it has an interesting topic. When I got a little bored at the beginning of the movie, it got more interesting and fluent as it progressed, it was aroused curiosity, the acting was also very good. Generally speaking, a strange movie is already a western comedy but an absurd comedy movie.

...But different in a good way or a bad?? I even bought this movie (still can't believe I did!) on Apple TV, cause I thought it was a romantic movie in Wild West and since I love Pattinson and love Wasikowska, I was pretty sure it would be at least descent. But No. This whole story was a 2-hour-wtf movie. I was literally jaw-dropping and face-palming the whole time -but in a boring way -if possible!!?! But yes, this movie was impossible. Why why why and why did I waste my time and money for this?! And why oh why did these good actors make this movie? What's the meaning of the story? That damsels don't need saving?! Ffs. The only nice thing was the scenery.