Counting Bullets

I'm not a relative nor was I paid to leave a "good" review. I am someone who understands this particular genre and style of movie making. It's not a multi-million dollar production. It was meant to be the product of artists working with a limited budget and it works in that perspective.

The acting is good (great in some parts) and not so good in others but always worth watching. The scenes of the trapped cavalry and the desperate situation they were in was well staged, well acted and the shots were well directed.

If you want Big Jake or Stagecoach, go see them. I enjoy these movies for what they are. Many, like this one, are a collaboration of artists working together to make something worth watching.

I like Westerns of the 1940s-1970s and thought that "Counting Bullets" compared well with them. I assume that most of those involved were amateurs, and if so then theirs was a commendable effort.

Another reviewer has mentioned the curiosity of the patrol not retrieving the weapons of ammunition of the killed Comancheros, and nor did it seem to take much in the way of supplies. And the two meaningful conversations between beleaguered members of the patrol went on a bit.

Good photography.

Easily worth a six, I've given it seven.

I picked this film up on DVD at Walmart for like 10 bucks. I thought it looked like a fun B-western. Apparently this production company somehow managed to make 12 westerns-one a month-during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. That is impressive even if the films all ended up as incoherent messes and/or complete garbage.

This is the only one I have seen but the film was good enough that I am interested in checking out the rest of the films. The production values are solidly shoestring budget and the acting is pretty amateurish; I think that adds to the charm of the film but you have to love Z-grade productions to get passed that.

But the direction and especially the script are surprisingly good. The shootouts and action build correctly to be tense. The story-even if it well-worn Cavalry and Indian story-does engage and the script is competent at set-up, payoff. The characters are thinly drawn and tropes but their characterizations work and they fit together well as cast of characters. This was a fun find. No one will think this is a great film or breaking new ground but it is an entertaining film made under extreme conditions. It is worth seeing just because of the production context.

Really enjoyed this movie. The word appealing seems to capture all that is true about this movie. The characters seemed real, so I cared about them and what happened to them. The story kept me interested and anxious for more.

The landscape was rugged, beautiful, and made a perfect background for the men who struggled for their lives.