The Journeyman

This is a vastly underrated film. The storyline and the location shots in Texas are excellent, and I think Brad Hunt makes one of the most sinister villains I've ever seen in a Western.

Watched it at least a half dozen times....

Despite his horrible actions, you can't help but feel sorry for The Morphinist and find yourself pulling for him in the final scene. It's easy to see how such people are created or made in society, molded by the things that happen to them in their youth.

If you like old spaghetti westerns, you'll like this. Many of the scenes remind me of A Few Dollars More or The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

This is no gussied up Western. Everyone and everything seems to be coated with a fine layer of dust. It portrays a rather bleak, spare environment with its characters manifesting a Darwinian "survival of the fittest" attitude.

What should have been the strong core of the movie proves to be its greatest weakness -- the two brothers and their relationship. Neither is developed beyond a shell. There is no one to root for in this film. Even an anti-hero has at least one redeeming quality to gain our sympathy but the title character has none. The minor characters are more fully realized and "human."

Did I mention the violence? More ammunition is expended here than in the entire Afghan conflict.

I thought I was in for a good movie.

I'd just watched Robert Duvall and Kevin Costner in Open Range, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and was looking forward to another "gritty and violent" movie.

About the only thing gritty was my gritted teeth when it finally finished.

The two main actors I'd best describe as wooden. The rest of the cast, with the exception of Barry Corbin, couldn't decide whether they were in a dark western or a comedy.

Not a movie I can recommend.

A very bloody, violent and ruthless Western. Two brothers are orphaned and separated when young, and one takes the wrong path in life, becoming a morphine-addicted Desperado.

Various outlaws, drifters and people with financial interests seek to kill each other, across the Badlands (set in Texas), and they do a pretty good job of it. No one shrinks from pulling a trigger, that's for sure. The violence, especially against women and children, becomes appalling and Gratuitous, really. Not a movie to watch with the Little Lady nor the children.

One man was equipped with a "Broomhandle Mauser" pistol, which was not invented until 1896, and certainly not a common sight in the Old West. This appears, alongside many cap-and-ball variant weapons, which are all much older. So, the story could not have taken place until after the turn of the Century (1900). Just one little Oddity.

If you like to see a LOT of Pathos and Summary Executions, this movie is for you. I had to knock off a few points, though I like gritty, realistic Westerns, the Realism of this one fades, when I reflect that very FEW people would have survived an Old West like this one.

This was a very good film. It is very direct and straight forward with its editing and continuity as well as its haunting sense of realism. The period styling is very gritty and yet also very colorful (many Westerns filmmakers seem to think that there was nothing but washed out colors in the late 1800s). The two main characters are The Morphinist and The Journeyman--two brothers separated at an early age. They meet once again at the climax, which is a well choreographed shoot-out in a graveyard. The drug addicted cowboy, The Morphinist, has some very cool lines such as: "People always remember evil long after they've forgotten good." The character of Walter P. Higgs III is very interesting and (for me) very funny. Walter is sad when Frank the Thief dies (betrayed by the Morphainist), and he is redeemed by the end of the film. I found myself rooting for Walter all throughout the film. The path of death that the Morphinist leaves in his drug induced wake makes him seem unredeemable, but when he weakly grasps the crucifix that the Journeyman places in his near dead hands at the end of the film we know that he too has suffered and needs compassion. But, only his brother could save him, or redeem him. This is among the best Westerns of the past ten years, and certainly ranks up there with Wild Bill, Tombstone, and Unforgiven.