Dead for a Dollar

Sometimes you just want to sit down and be entertained and not really think that much. Dead for a Dollar is no The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, it never strives to be a film on that scale. Dead for a Dollar is for entertainment, a western with a simplistic plot and plenty of action, a film which takes its sweet time.

A famed bounty hunter runs into his sworn enemy, a professional gambler and outlaw that he had sent to prison years before.

Dead for a Dollar is written and directed by Walter Hill, who made The Warriors which is his most famous. It stars Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, and Rachel Brosnahan, which are quite big names and their performances were great. Brandon Scott, Warren Burke, Benjamin Bratt, and Hamish Linklater also star. The cinematography was amazing, with lots of stunning shots. The mise-en-scene too was great. You can say what you want for the writing, it isn't the film's strong point, but the direction is solid and the cooperation between Walter Hill and Lloyd Ahern II is terrific. About the pacing, I thought it was good in the first half but it just kept dragging on during its second half. For a low budget film, this is an excellent film, because of how he used the money for the production. Brutal action which he doesn't shine away from, how beautiful the film actually looks, Walter Hill created a good film. I liked it a lot and when the climax happens, when you arrive to the ending, the slow pacing in the second half becomes worth the wait. Nicely executed by Walter Hill.

With all the cheap B westerns lately, finally a decent one comes along.

The cast is superb. You can't beat Christoph Waltz. He does a great job as the bounty hunter. Rachel Brosnahan played her part as a strong female character. I really liked seeing Willem Dafoe in a new movie.

It has a good story. Complements to the writer, director and casting agency. The movie was entertaining to watch.

It didn't have that big Hollywood feel but I enjoyed it very much.

Coming from 50 years of watching a lot of westerns.

I'm afraid after the mishap with Alex Baldwins movie "Rust", we may never see another decent western.

I'd start by saying Waltz, Dafoe, Bratt and the others are great actors. All did a great job with what they had here. Problem is, not sure what they had here.

The scenes were a bit choppy and kept waiting for a tv commercial to play between them.

Pretty sure I nodded off at one point and missed some, but it made no difference.

This was a western, I think, but not one I'd recommend for western movie watchers. The actors are top notch but just couldn't save it.

I would have tried for a spaghetti western vibe over this 50s American tv series type. The scenes with Waltz and Dafoe were good but the writing, no sir, I didn't like it.

It was simply too elementary. Ah well, better luck next time.

Walter Hill is back with a solid old school western.

Unfortunately, films of this type are no longer made, today we are invaded by the rubbish of Marvel, by dozens of useless and pathetic reboots and remakes and in fact this film ignored by most of the public lobotomized by the great empty and soulless blockbusters.

Hill, on the other hand, packs an exquisitely retro, dark and funny film at the right point with a wonderful cast, above all obviously the always immense Christoph Waltz who plays a character very similar to the one he played in Django Unchained, but also Willem Dafoe and the beautiful and talented Rachel Brosnahan give some really good performances.

A film that goes straight to its purpose without getting lost in chatter, without lasting 3 hours (which today seems mandatory), but the usual hour and forty-five as it used to be.

My advice is not to waste time with yet another Creed, with Top Gun 2 or with the cinecomics rubbish, but rather watch this solid film, which is certainly not a masterpiece, but it is undoubtedly a very good film, better than 90% of the trash that Hollywood produces today.

With the help of a solider a bounty hunter takes a job to search for a businessman' wife who has been kidnapped by a deserter.

Walter Hill returns to directing delivering a bitter sweet Western. Hill offers tension, twists, whippings and shootouts with a great cast including Christoph Waltz, Willem Dafoe, Brandon Scott, Warren Burke and Benjamin Bratt to name a few. Waltz and Defoe are on form; but Scott is a screen stealer. Writers Matt Harris and Hill's story has all the Western high jinx you'd want from a genre piece. However, considering Hills past work, the camera work is lacklustre, shaky, the sound design, the scene transitions and colour timing is off, giving it a rough low budget TV feel. This sucks the life out of the great locations sets and costumes that not even the fitting traditional score can lift.

Overall, if your expecting the grandeur of great Western's you may be left disappointed, however, it offers top performances and a good old fashion western yarn.