The Last Rites of Ransom Pride

(2010) The Last Rites of Ransom Pride WESTERN

Co-written and directed by Tiller Russell directing a retribution movie starring Lizzy Caplan as she plays Juliette Flowers along with an abuser, Reverend Early Pride (Dwight Yoakam) both on a pursuing rant to go after confederate commander, Shepherd Graves (Kris Kristofferson). The name "Ransom Pride" as the title indicates is the character played by Scott Speedman who was supposed to be Juliette Flowers love interest.

The budget constraints shows despite some memorable actors such as Peter Dinkrage and Scott Speedman except that this during the time when neither of them were not part of hit franchises.

A plus for Canadian westerns over Italian westerns is no lip-synch. That pretty much sums it up. There isn't a lot a film crew can do with $8MUSD, and this crew was no exception. Despite a rock solid performance by Dwight Yoakum and good walk-on by Kris Kristofferson, they were the only ones taking their roles seriously. Everyone else involved in the film, most especially the writers, knew this stinker was headed straight to Netflix on demand and exerted themselves accordingly. It's too bad, because if they hadn't been going for bizarre there were elements here of a worthwhile story. Over-the-top performances really kill any character development that begins to rise up, and the indiscriminate use of flashbacks is done just to re-use film and extend run-time without doing anything for the story. I can't believe they actually bothered to bring this dog to Blu- Ray. If you can watch it for free on Popcorm using your Roku and have nothing else to do, have at it. Otherwise, get out and mow the lawn, weed the garden. It's a better use of your time.

So you want to make a western, but not just a western. Nooooo. This is gonna be a Work of art too. So we add some weird color scheme and a lot of fixed camera settings on plants and desolate landscapes. Some strange music on top and let the plot unfurl really slooow. Now this takes the western up to art level, right? WRONG!! This is the recipe for a bad movie. Same thing happened for the french adaption of the comic Blueberry. What you get is a pretentious nothing. There have been several westerns deserving the art stamp. (The Searchers, The good bad & ugly, The unforgiven, to name a few), but these always worked within the boundaries of how a western should be, namely entertaining. This one definitely doesn't fit the bill.

It felt like a guilty pleasure watching the undeniably charismatic lead shoot her sultry and sexy way through assorted scuzzy reprobates, in this stylised take on the Western genre. The story involves an entertaining romp along the Mexican American border just after the turn of the last Century, in which early forms of mechanised transport duel with the traditional horsebacked cowboy depiction, and help to capture a changing age. The characters we are introduced to along the way (such as the dwarf/dying Siamese combo) help add to the slightly exotic, almost burlesque feel of the film. There is nothing particularly original here, and it felt like a definite case of 'style over substance'; I thought the final product was slightly let down by some hard-to-hear dialogue, and I couldn't decide if the jarring 'electric shock' flashbacks (or forwards) were too fast for me to keep up with, or just unnecessary. The casting department appeared to have raided the strange world of professional David Beckham lookalikes to fill the supporting role, and his transition from obedient daddy's boy to moody, seasoned side-kick shooter was too sudden and implausible....but then these are minor gripes about a film that doesn't profess much of a basis in historical reality, and is all the better for it. 7/10

I love the western genre enough that often I can accept a lesser entry of the genre despite its shortcomings. However, in the case of "The Last Rites of Ransom Pride", there are far more shortcomings than good elements. Actually, I can't recall any good elements at all! Though higher budgeted than most other Canadian films, it seems that they blew most of the money on rounding up that cast, since the visual look of the movie is horrible. The movie looks really cheap, due to a combination of threadbare production values and the always unwise decision to wash out any vibrant colors. But what is worse is the direction and the script. The story plays out in a very muddled way, so that despite the core story (sort of) making sense, there are details that are so badly explained (if explained at all) that you'll be scratching your head. And despite a running length of only 82 minutes, the movie plods on at a really slow pace, mainly due to there not being a heck of a lot of plot. Though there are a lot of annoying arty and self conscious moments It's evident that the filmmakers were trying for something different, but ironically they almost certainly would have made a better movie had they tried to be more conventional.