Jericho

Although very obscure and a little hard to locate, "Jericho", a film which has nothing to do with the city of the same name, is a combination of the genres of mystery and Western that results in something that is quite delightful, however not extraordinary.

The story feels more like it should be set in the 1940s as opposed to the 1880s and it has some truly bad dialogue and ridiculous moments such as in the opening third of the running time and a few spotty performances, but in the end, I thoroughly enjoyed "Jericho" and the mean reason was because obviously the writers had clearly outlined their story a few times to create a fairly complex, but understandable mystery film that really shows its true colors in the final act.

Typically when I review a film, I go into a deep analysis, but this time I'm going to cut short, because "Jericho" was not a film that had my enormously involved or incredibly disinterested. I was somewhere in the midpoint between these two verdicts. I basically liked the movie but more or less as a guilty pleasure. The story is good, but the screenplay is a patchwork of good and bad dialogue, there are some mediocre performances save Mark Valley, Leon Coffee, and some of the supporting cast, and the music score was completely off-kilter. It does make up for this when the mystery of the story is solved towards the end, but then it's sort of ruined when the movie reaches an abrupt, non-conclusive resolution. In the end, if you like Westerns, or better still, if you like mysteries, you may or may not enjoy "Jericho." This is a film that will find its reviewers split right down the middle.

This movie is a great example of why so many people are watching independent, "Indie", movies now. The absence of large amounts of capital requires the artists, (producers, directors, writers and actors) to become more creative.

The story is original and the dialog is realistic. It passes my "Believability Test" for action/drama movies. (Do you believe this could happen, in this way?)

Leon Coffee is a surprisingly good actor. If he ever tires of dodging bulls, (he is a professional rodeo clown) Hollywood could certainly use his talent.

Many of the extras in this film were cowboy "re-enactors" from around Texas. They provided a bit of extra authenticity to the film.

Mark Valley's charisma and excellent acting are clearly on display. Leon Coffee is terrific as the itinerant cowboy preacher. Supporting roles by R. Lee Ermey (superb as always), Mark Collie (the country singer), and Lisa Stewart keep the story moving. While clearly a first movie from a young production company, they put together a very good film that is suitable for the entire family. Extraordinarily well-written story that is anything but predictable. Minimal violence but none of it graphic. I'm surprised that Valley didn't get offered additional movie roles on the basis of this. Believe that he and Coffee had excellent on-screen chemistry. There should be a sequel.

It's amazing to see how different people can have such varying opinions of the same movie. One rated it a 10 and called it a great "family" film. I guess they missed out on the scenes about the man getting his head blown off with a shotgun or the rape or the hanging. And some rated it a 1. Come on! It wasn't going to win an academy award, but it was entertaining. I think it was somewhere in the middle. I just found interesting that Jericho could make it through all he did, spend all that time on the trail and remain so good looking and clean shaven.

I saw this movie in a theater, with a Q&A by the director, in Springfield, MO, which is one of the places the director calls home and where one of the actors (Woody P. Snow, a local radio DJ) is from. It was a decent movie for its essentially shoe-string budget. Not really what you'd call a Western...it's more of a character study or psychological drama that dresses itself in Western trappings. (Sort of like how "Little House on the Prairie" was set in the west without having the constant gunfights and things that you associate with a Western.) It also had a few problems with the pacing, particularly toward the end where it suddenly and without warning drops into a 15-minute flashback. Had a few interesting ideas in it, though...particularly in regard to how what you think you see at the beginning isn't what you really see at all.