Birthright Outlaw

It is such a joy to watch a western with the qualities that made this nation great when it was. When I watch a movie like this I understand that the values that this Western propagates are not the values of the past but the only hope for our future. It has elements of confronting one's past with deliberate honesty after having been delivered to a different path than that past life, and finding grace of God waiting in the end. It is a movie that looks to the future with hope and vigorous knowledge of the birthright the movie is alluding to in Christian faith, the birthright of his kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Excellent movie!

It's 1890 Arizona. Martha Rose Jacobs (Sarah Drew) is living her perfect life with husband Jeremiah Jacobs (Lucas Black) and daughter Hope Jacobs (Olivia Sanabia). One night, her past upends her life with a vengeance. They are attacked by a gang led by her father William 'King of Hearts' Bridges (Jeff Fahey) and Hope gets kidnapped.

I like the start and the opening premise. It's a B-western with aspirations to be a good spaghetti western. The filmmaking starts to falter a bit. A few things start bugging me. There is no way that she would hesitate to shoot that guy. She would probably shoot him in the back. She already shot someone in the back. There is no need to do that old trope where the good guy do not shoot first. That guy is shooting at her husband. She needs to put that guy down without warning. Finally, I find the whole card motif thing going overboard. They can be called that, but there is no need for the tents. It's a little ridiculous for rampaging fugitives to be putting up circus tents. There is a good idea here, but the execution keeps getting in the way.

Since the beginning, first scene, the guy arrives in his horse in a house in the middle of nowhere and his wife dealing with her laundry in the open only notices the man arriving when he is 50 feet away. Ahã!

The grand father is pathetic, an outlaw escaping from justice with a camp under a hill? Hello, if you want to protect yourself, stay in the top!

Also, there was no GPS at that time, but the sherif, manages to hit the spot where there was a dead guy. To persons fire at each other and the director changes scene. A cheep suspense. But the wife of the sheriff arriving in the end is absolutely offensive to viewers. If you like westerns, have watched Dolare Bucato, stay away!

I loved it. Great score, great love story about marriage when things get hard. Fun moments, appropriately tense at times. Family friendly, for the most part. It has the feel of a classic western movie, including the surreal fun of criminals who are given to hypocrisy. It's faith based and the speeches about God are not cheesy or fake or wishy washy, but rather real and raw and tender. It's hard to convey faith and family in a cinematic way without it coming across shallow, and somehow the director captured it. It's not a perfect film, but it's the perfect film for me. I'm looking forward to seeing more from this director.

The only reason it didn't receive 10 stars from me.was its use of modern bible version scripture references. This movie was authentic in so many ways; from the cinematography to the music to casting to screenplay. The only Bible version that was widely used during the timeframe and setting of the movie was the King James Bible. For that faux pas it gets only 9 stars. Whether this was intentional because of the bent of the producer or director remains to be seen.

Lucas Black and Sarah Drew's performances shined in my opinion but there were no characters in this movie that were weak. I highly recommend this movie.

What a joy it was to see a new western with a Christian theme.