Heart of the Gun

Dark and gritty....definitely not your Mother's Western. An unexpected psychological thriller. Set in the great Arizona scenery, Mason and Marrs are excellent in their tortured stories. Mason is as mysterious as Marrs is heart sick in his struggling pursuit. Much beloved Jay Pickett is memorable as the Tracker serving justice, but will justice really be served? Stand out performances by Travis Mills and Michael P Walker. I will always remember the fish. A dark and complex Western with enough layers to keep it interesting to the very end. Definitely one of the favorites among the 12 Westerns in 12 months brought to the screen by Writer Director Travis Mills.

Great cinematography and composition. Interesting characters.

JD Pepper delivers a memorable monologue.

An interesting mix of action and drama. A great performance by Jay Pickett, it's hard to believe this was to be one of his last performances. He will be greatly missed.

One of the darker if not the darkest of the 12 Westerns made. The could be debatable.

Always nice to see real fun fire from blank bullets rather than digital effects thrown in through post production, those always leave me cringing.

All in all well done. Clearly not a Hollywood budget film, but the effort definitely shines.

Heart of the Gun is the last of twelve movies made by filmmaker Travis Mills. He has astonishingly made twelve movies in twelve months, all of them Westerns. Unfortunately, the movie is very slow, lacks coherence, and is not really believable. The actors are amateurs and deliver poor performances.

... but the film's plot is a tad contrived. It's an interesting idea, but some one-dimensional characters with single-minded purpose didn't help. It's slow-paced and the viewer has to pay attention. Mainly good acting and cinematography.

I liked watching it unfold, particularly the interaction between the two leads as they figuratively and literally feel each other out. They're both looking for something they've lost, but the subjects of their respective losses get buried in the bitterness and hurt that have become their raisons d'être.

I always enjoy strong female leads, and even some of the supporting characters showed courage. Due to the bread crumbs left along the way, the ending is not really surprising.

There is casual racism, apparently reflective of the time, and the lone Apache has stilted dialog.

I'd watch it again.