Brothers in Arms

First of all, I feel I should say that I am a HUGE fan of westerns. So much so, that I am often very forgiving if a western has some shortcomings. But with "Brothers In Arms", I simply could not accept what it had to offer. There are so many things wrong with it. There's the modern hip-hop music score. The characters dressed in costumes that not only look too modern, but don't look like they've been lived in long. The look of the movie is wretched, being badly photographed, badly lit, and filtered to look too murky. The locations in and out of town look boring. The shootouts are badly directed and edited. There's modern slang spoken. There is a female sheriff. And if you put all of his footage together, David Carradine has no more than five minutes of screen time. I can't see this appealing to either an "urban" audience or for western addicts.

I am about 70% of the way through this movie and I had to stop. I couldn't go any further after seeing the "wooden" teller counter in the bank bow under the weight of "Linc". I couldn't stop laughing after that. This movie is agonizing. It's painful to watch. I've always told people who criticize some of the "B" level horror films that I'm in a habit of watching that you have to suspend reality for two hours to enjoy most films. It's Hollywood. Enjoy the fantasy trip. But this film won't even let me suspend common sense, let alone reality. I'm guessing that the movie is supposed to be set sometime in late 1800's. I'm guessing because the movie is not even convincing me that it could have been set in any reasonable past time frame. Where to begin...the clothes...the clothes are a joke. It's the wild west meets MTV. Is it a movie or a music video...hmmm???? Check out the woman in the bank robbing gang. Women may have dressed that way in the wild west bordellos, but not for trail riding and bank robbing. The situations are laughable. You can't convince me that there were any women sheriffs and/or deputies or women bank tellers in the wild west days. The acting is deplorable. Where did they get the mayor and his wife...some Disney movie? And who's idea was it to bring Bill (David Carradine's character from Kill Bill) back to life and send him back in time to the wild west? Carradine doesn't have much to lose by starring in this film. He's already at the end of his career. But for the countless young actors and actresses who made the bitter error of choosing this vehicle as a ladder climbing notch in their belts have opted for a bullet hole in their careers. I'm going to try to make it through the balance of this film and return it shamefully to my local Blockbuster store. But I highly recommend this film for file 13. You know, the round file...the trash.....

This film is waste of time, money, oxygen, cigarettes, cokes, electricity, etc. It cannot be worse than this. There is no acting, no directing, no camera moves or tricks or effects... The script is awful. Full of clichés, the worst ones... Music is just stupid. The casting is utterly and totally catastrophe. I like KURUPT though. But he does not talk very much. They tried to mix the white western culture and black R&B-HIPHOP thing!!! I don't even know what to call it. What is David Carradine doing there? Believe me I really want to give away the ending, but I will not, I don't know why. just DON'T !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Please... I am begging you

"Brothers in Arms" is the latest in the sub-genre of 'hip-hop westerns', which stills strikes me as a great idea, but has yet to be realized into something more worthy than direct to video fare (Wild Wild West included). This film doesn't change that. It does have passable performances from Gabriel Casseus and Raymond Cruz to off-set the outright horrible ones of Antwon Tanner and Kenya Moore. Better than average (at least for direct to video) cinematography is overshadowed by the stale production design, dismal writing, dead action sequences, and repetitive stock hip-hop music. Hip-hop could hack it in a western, just hear T-Bone Burnett's work with the Nappy Roots in "The Ladykillers" and imagine the possibilities. But here, it's a complete distraction. How Jean-Claude La Marre ever nabbed David Carradine for this, I can only guess, but he does as good a job as anyone could've done with the writing and, in this kind of wreck, professionalism is the most you could ask for.

The last 5 minutes are so pretentious and melodramatic, they border on unwatchable. Please, save the song for the credits next time. If you want the scene to be powerful, give us a character that we have a reason to care about.

Here's to the next effort in this sub-genre, may it be something deep and resonant... Ernest Dickerson, where are you when we need you!

Rap hip hop cool western, yo! A gang of black cowboy gangstas are planning the biggest heist of their lives. A fortune is passing through a small bank in a godforsaken town ruled by a sinister tyrant and his sadistic son. The paths of the gang and the tyrant passed before, and sweet revenge or brutal death is imminent as they meet again.

Now, this actually sounds quite intriguing to me, but there is one huge problem: The movie actually takes itself dead serious, while it on the best is a big joke.

OK, I can try to ignore the girls in the movie has silicon enlarged lips, with a tattoo outliner and a nice lip gloss thrown in, looking like some random prostitutes dragged off the street, with much less acting skills than you would expect even from a female of that given profession.

I can also try to ignore the desperate attempts at trying to be new by putting every known western cliché upside down, like the women are the strong ones kicking the guys butt, the black people are the cool dudes from da hood untouched by the slavery common a the time, while the white guys at best are stupid and pathetic cannon fodder, or at best evil and rotten to the bone.

I bet the director would be sued for racism if he movie had all the black guys exchanged with white guys. Not that I care about the political correctness of a movie, if the movie is good anything flies.

But, what kind of mindless, drug abused mind have come up with the plot?? I mean, some guys come up with the brilliant plan of walking straight into a bank loaded with treasure yet with no guards whatsoever, flash a gun, take the money before some guy chasing them magically appears outside from nowhere and we have a final shootout.

THATS IT! Swallow it down with some oh so deep soulshattering philosophy about bonds between brothers are stronger than life and death, made into a joke by what is possibly the worst western movie ever made.

I thought it would be refreshing and new, but they killed everything good about western movies, and added a bunch of boring, cliché-filled, badly executed elements instead.

I will even go so far to say that I can in fact enjoy a good turkey, because it becomes so bad it is actually fun to watch in good company, but this.. This is not even that.

Don't SEE THIS MOVIE! IT IS A TOTAL AND UTTERLY WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY! If you need to see an alternative Western movie, see Wild Wild West with Will Smith again instead, it is mindblowingly better than this load of humus.