Murder at Yellowstone City

Actors were not bad but awful story and script or poor direction or I'm walking too ahead of time. People need to experience life and study filmmaking before trying their hand on it.

Starts as an average western story with decent cinematography and a very interesting cast.

The first half of the movie is passable, waiting to see how it builds up, nothing special happens. The third quarter falls in a sequence of disappointing clichés, completely making me lose the faith in the movie, but the last quarter was absolute nonsense! I couldn't believe such bad writing, I couldn't stop rolling my eyes and wondering in amazement what the hell was going on and why everyone was doing what they were doing. Abysmal.

I won't bother mentioning any other aspect of the movie, I'm giving some points on the technical aspect and the casting, all the rest is pathetic.

A former slave arrives in Yellowstone City, Montana, a desolate former boomtown now on the decline, looking for a place to call home. On that same day, a local prospector discovers gold - and is murdered.

It's not a bad story, and not a bad TV movie. But it's not a great film and won't be one you'd watch twice. The acting is not what you'd expect off a good quality cast, but it befits a low grade TV movie. There's lot's of gunfights, sadly badly orchestrated and no continuity in them. The pace is good, which is a godsend because the film is too long by 30 minutes. There's lots of sets which all look brand new, but the church is almost laughable with it's black cardboard windows, and the costumes look as if they've just been made, with no wear at all. There's some great goofs, one being the pistol that ex gunfighter Thaddius Murphy has, which is put into it's holster the wrong way round! Glamour is provided by the lovely Anna Camp, and DEI casting courtesy of a gay couple. All in all it's not awful, if you have nothing else at all to watch then this will do to fill in a gap. But don't sit down to purposefully watch it or you will be saddened. I gave it a 4 because it wasn't bottom of the barrel, but it wasn't anywhere near the top either.

I must admit that the movie's cover/poster definitely seemed interesting, and the fact that there was names like Gabriel Byrne, Thomas Jane and Richard Dreyfuss on the cast list definitely had me interested. So as I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 2022 Western "Murder at Yellowstone City" from writer Eric Belgau and director Richard Gray, of course I did so.

However, I must say that the storyline in the movie was a murder mystery, and not really your archetypical Western movie. Sure, I suppose there will be an audience out there for a murder mystery set against a Western backdrop. I just happened not be that particular audience, as I am not fond of slow paced murder mysteries where little happens and the audience is forced to try to figure it out beforehand the director opts to reveal it.

Yeah, the narrative in "Murder at Yellowstone City" was just too slow paced and uneventful for me, so I didn't enjoy this movie. And I managed to sit through a staggering 59 minutes of pure slow paced nothingness, before I gave up on the movie. Running at 127 minutes, I just saw no reason to continue on with this movie.

Not only was the storyline a swing and a miss in terms of entertaining me, but the character gallery in the movie was incredibly mundane and rather pointless as well. I honestly didn't care one bit about any of the characters that droned about on the screen aimlessly.

"Murder at Yellowstone City" was a swing and a miss movie, and it is not one I am ever returning to finish watching. Sure, I enjoy a proper Western, but this murder mystery just didn't cut it for me.

My rating of "Murder at Yellowstone City" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

Wanted to give it 7 stars, would give it 6 1/2 if possible..

Positives- actors, a couple creative scenes I hadn't seen before in a Western, cinematography not bad at all, acting decent, plot line acceptable and actually analogous to the world at large, which I'm not sure was intentional, but works from my perspective..

Negatives- everything looks new, like they just made it or polished it up.. Kinda weak on I presume the set masters part.. I don't think it's giving anything away to toss in the typical scenario of people getting shot several times, then still functioning.. Of course bullets rarely run out and Hollywood does what it does and way overdoes the booms and bangs.. They had an ok idea for the script, but I suspect in order to get the picture made the studio or some idiot producer decided they needed more bang for the buck.. It's too bad as if they had let it alone (and gave it a better title) this could have been very good.. As is, I found it entertaining enough.. No worse than dozens of old B rated Westerns from years gone by.. If they'd have fixed the 3 main problems I mentioned (and the stupid title) it could have been a contender.. I give it bonus points for the deeper world view and I hope people get some value from that as not many movies can offer that these days.. Certainly better than a lot of the garbage I've seen over recent years..! 🤔