Dead for a Dollar

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.