Westender

The scenery is beautiful, and many times you'll be thinking to yourself, "Where is this place??" In particular, there is a scene with a waterfall that just cries to be walked to and explored.

So far as an actual film, it would have been better served as a series of postcards, as you get breathtaking vistas with only little snippets of storyline on the back to figure out what is going on. And while the acting is pretty atrocious, it is both good and bad to note that the dialog is thin and minutes pass without any words being spoken. A little voice also appears in your head after about 20 minutes whispering in your ear, "Come on, something has to happen to move the story forward". But it never comes, and you're just watching, plodding along waiting desperately for the next ill conceived plot device taking set in overwhelming scenery shots.

If you're looking for anything remotely interesting, stay away.

This movie is awfully unbearable.

For awhile, I thought it was produced by Oregon Department of Parks and Recreation as a good amount of the film is an exposition of Oregon's forests.

The plot...well I wasn't sure if there's any. OK, let me try - it's a man's quest to find the one ring and on his journey he supposedly find himself. Well, I think that's what they're trying to illustrate but the writer and the director failed miserably. The writer failed to explain several aspect of the film. For instance, how the protagonist fell from grace, or who was the woman, who burned the woman, who was the gypsy etc. Moreover, it seemed like, there are only about 2 pages of dialogue written for this movie and the little dialogue it had, it was very weak. It did not helped that the actors delivery of the dialogue is equally terrible and the acting is not very convincing. The only convincing acting in the whole movie I found was the old man in the cave. However, he can't seem decide if his accent should be Celtic or English.

The director makes up for the lack of dialogue and weak plot with a stunning cinematography. Not bad for a first time director. However, I do find it very boring and exhausting after awhile when all you see is a man walking scenes after scenes with a gorgeous landscape in the background.

This film is not even worth a rental albeit, the DVD cover looked like a John Waterhouse painting.

If we are to judge this movie by Hollywood blockbuster standards, then it deserves it's average 5/10 stars rating that it has here on IMDb. This is not a great movie, but I have paid to see many out of Hollywood that are worse.

That said I am mightily impressed with the quality of result that was achieved with virtually no budget. This was largely shot with volunteer work, on a shoe string budget most of us could come up with by begging from parents and friends. This movie stands as an example to all of us that we really could make movies ourselves if we really put our minds to it.

Westender is, if nothing else, a showcase for some of the nicer scenery of the state of Oregon. As an Oregonian I can appreciate that. We've got some nice rain forests and some breathtaking deserts. It's a nice state to visit, but for God's sake don't come here to make a movie. Seriously, we're the kiss of death for just about any movie that is filmed here. I wish I could be more supportive of my state and say otherwise, but the evidence is piled too high so I've got to be honest about it. Movies made in Oregon, even in part, face some serious problems. Westender is a good example of that. It has some great location shots and the director has a talent for framing a pretty scene, but the film just cannot manage to rise above feeling like an end-of-term film school project. The story is pretty straight forward: a downtrodden warrior named Asbrey thoughtlessly gambles away a ring that belonged to a lost love. When he comes to his senses he pursues the man who won it and in the process gets caught up chasing a band of slavers. Simple enough, except that the protagonist is also prone to hallucinations, bizarre dreams, and fits of madness. Don't get the idea that this is an action movie, by any means, but it's more a journey through the protagonist's soul. And since the story is told from his perspective it is all too easily led astray, wandering off on tangents that hint at his past and his motivations, but never tells you enough to make much sense. Supporting characters occasionally show up, hoping to help ground Asbrey and help to provide some means by which he could be better understood, but they are all to easily discarded. And so without any anchor, Asbrey spends way too much time wandering about in a stupor, taking the audience on a journey that makes sense in the end but is too long and too dull in the process.

Westender is the breakthrough film for M.O.B. Productions. Shot in the filmmakers' home state of Oregon, it is only the beginning for these guys.

The characters are well developed, the cinematography is beautiful, and the story is satisfying. If you're paying attention, you get all the information you really need to know about the characters. I'm not saying the movie is perfect, all movies have their flaws and weak moments, but for being an Indy film early on in the career of M.O.B. Productions, it is very impressive.

I'm personally a M.O.B. Productions fan and I'm excited to see what these guys have in store.