Counting Bullets

Bad acting, bad film work, bad bad bad

I could not get past the first 30 minutes of this rubbish film and went to a different movie to watch.

I picked this film up on DVD at Walmart for like 10 bucks. I thought it looked like a fun B-western. Apparently this production company somehow managed to make 12 westerns-one a month-during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. That is impressive even if the films all ended up as incoherent messes and/or complete garbage.

This is the only one I have seen but the film was good enough that I am interested in checking out the rest of the films. The production values are solidly shoestring budget and the acting is pretty amateurish; I think that adds to the charm of the film but you have to love Z-grade productions to get passed that.

But the direction and especially the script are surprisingly good. The shootouts and action build correctly to be tense. The story-even if it well-worn Cavalry and Indian story-does engage and the script is competent at set-up, payoff. The characters are thinly drawn and tropes but their characterizations work and they fit together well as cast of characters. This was a fun find. No one will think this is a great film or breaking new ground but it is an entertaining film made under extreme conditions. It is worth seeing just because of the production context.

Really enjoyed this movie. The word appealing seems to capture all that is true about this movie. The characters seemed real, so I cared about them and what happened to them. The story kept me interested and anxious for more.

I started watching this and became intrigued. Good scenes in the fort, and as a veteran I knew guys who were often in trouble - drunk too, usually - but had combat service records to be proud of and depended upon.

Michael Estridge was a good green officer and did a fine job of acting as such.

And then the surprise/shock of who "the Indians" were ... rather like Jaws not being horribly discovered until well into the film.

The weapons looked to be of accurate vintage, although in one of the final scenes Lt. Lowe was shot at point-blank and somehow missed. (This *can* happen, but it didn't help screen credibility.) And as others have observed, the location was as unsparingly glaring as it was beautiful.

And no, I'm not related to the production company. :-) A decent flick.

I'm not a relative nor was I paid to leave a "good" review. I am someone who understands this particular genre and style of movie making. It's not a multi-million dollar production. It was meant to be the product of artists working with a limited budget and it works in that perspective.

The acting is good (great in some parts) and not so good in others but always worth watching. The scenes of the trapped cavalry and the desperate situation they were in was well staged, well acted and the shots were well directed.

If you want Big Jake or Stagecoach, go see them. I enjoy these movies for what they are. Many, like this one, are a collaboration of artists working together to make something worth watching.