Hostile Territory

I'll watch any Western movie. I absolutely love them. This has the feel of a poorly written and executed Spaghetti Western with the modern touch added. A little bit of research into the lexicon and dress of the period would have made it loads better. Using the wrong Native American tribes for the location and period is a big issue, which is easily corrected with a simple search. It just has the feel of trying to make a modern Clint Eastwood or John Wayne plot, but with half the effort, which says a lot, considering how low budget those typically were. However, it was refreshing to see a new aspect added, with the Orphan Train getting some needed recognition. The cinematography and musical score were great, contrasting the shoddy script and acting at times. The ending was pretty weak as well, making the movie feel rushed to conclude. In all, for a Western lover, it's your run of the mill, low budget fix. It could be loads better, but it could also be much, much worse.

The movie at first intrigued my girlfriend and I do to us liking westerns and violence but this movie was so historically and accurate that it honestly became laughable a little past the halfway mark not only was it historically inaccurate but it was also a culturally inaccurate and play too much on emotions when most western movies are supposed to faze away from emotion horrible development horrible director all around a horrible movie, where was this movie supposed to be filmed? I never knew they were mountains that look like the Southwest in Missouri. Savior Life 2 hours and skip out on this movie We turned it off and couldn't even finish the last 10 minutes because we were laughing too much I wouldn't be surprised if I saw some somebody wearing Air Force ones in the movie.

It started out well, but then you just wait and wait and wait while the story dragged on and on with boring dialogs.

Then you realize much of the film did no research and is based on cliches. For example, Apaches are from desert like New Mexico, they're not found in Missouri, not even close.

These cliches and inaccuracies just takes you out of the suspension of disbelief. A black woman walking on the road and out of nowhere a bunch of confederates decides to rape her with 2 union soldiers, armed union soldiers, only a few feet away? And the whole thing is just down right cliche, Confederates are evil, Union are good. I mean, do you know how many women were raped in Atlanta by Union soldiers? How many homes burned, children killed?

It's ironic b/c the final message of the movie is violence is bad and people should learn to live in peace, despite their cultural and ethnic differences. Yet in the so called diversity utopia ending, they never reconcile the main division between the Confederate and the Union at the beginning of the film. That's just either political bias or just very cliche work that did no research.

Then there is the ludicrous scenes, such as when the black woman all of the sudden end up riding a horse with them and armed with a pistol. Forget the fact, horses are quite expensive, but she was riding the horse in a dress? And she had lessons on how to ride horses? When the Apache showed up, they had to make quick turns and rode on high, she was trained to do that? Then she just pulled out a pistol and started firing at the Apache. Was she trained to use a gun?

I get this is a low budget movie, but the filming is actually quite good. The only time I thought it was cheezey was the Indian's costumes, a bit too colorful and Walmart. Which is ironic b/c Indian's outfit should be the easiest to make in comparison to the other clothings such as the soldiers uniforms, which require much more attention to detail. But a lot of these inconsistencies and ridiculous elements can easily be avoided with a little bit of research on the internet.

I found this confusing as hell. Where did the family originally live? That was never established. Where was the father a POW? Never established. He is traveling from somewhere (never established) to Missouri. I did not realize that Missouri after the Civil War was still considered hostile Indian territory. It was civilized and a heavily battled over during the Civil War itself so from where have the sudden hostile tribes originated? It was all filmed in Colorado. This is why it didn't look like Missouri. I couldn't figure out where the mountains were coming from or what an earth was happening. This movie had so much potential. It was like it picked up halfway into the story but never explained what happened in the previous part. There have been a lot of orphan train books and movies and most are far better than this. I found this to be a great disappointment.

I don't know what people expected when going in to this movie, but a present rating of 4.3 is nothing but insulting.

The cinematography and the music is 10/10, nothing more, nothing less. The acting was really good from some of the actors, not as good from others. What do people expect from a low budget movie like this?

I read someone saying that the movie was slow. I on the other hand felt that it passed by too fast. It could literally had been at least an hour longer because it felt to me as if they tried to add too much into the movie which made it feel as if it was a bit rushed.

With a larger budget and another hour added it could've been great.

I must admit that the action scenes wasn't really Good, but i mean it's good enough. It's the message and the cinematography that got to me in this one.

It's a well deserved 6.5 or a 7. I chose to give it a 7. It's well worth a watch if you don't expect 24/7 action.