Summer Love

With every review warning people away from this film, one would have to have some kind of masochistic streak to want to watch a film like this. However, my reasons are more to do with the fact that this used to air on cable rather frequently for whatever reason. However, I never saw the film through, only the last 15 minutes, and the last 15 minutes are quite a trip.

It's a film that sticks with you but not really for good reasons. However, the final 15 minutes -- if that's all you saw -- will leave you equally confused and intrigued. And so for years I have thought about this film because I had no idea what was going on. It was frequently advertised as "starring Val Kilmer", and who wouldn't want to see a Western starring Val Kilmer?

Well, I can thoroughly say that his is not a good film. But to be fair, the cinematography is not bad and the audio design is passable. The problem is that everything else is terrible. The acting is terrible. The editing is horrible. And it has some of the worst pacing in movie history.

The plot here is basically non-existent. That's why the IMDB description is so sparse. The whole conflict within the movie is also embarrassing, as it all transpires from a misunderstanding. And then devolves into a bloody mess for literally no good reason.

It all culminates to that finale I talked about at the start of the review. Is it worth watching for the final 15 minutes? Heck no. Is it worth watching for Val Kilmer? No, because he's not actually in it.

The movie tries to be non-linear at times, showing things in the past and then zipping back to the present, and then showing things in the future and then zipping back to the past, but none of it works. The dialogue is atrocious and none of the characters explain anything or have anything interesting to say.

There are no proper action sequences -- even the final 15 minutes isn't a proper action sequence, and how it resolves itself doesn't make a whole lot of sense and will leave you scratching your head as to what you just watched.

Also, Karel Rodan looks good as a gunslinger, but doesn't get to do much gunslinging, and doesn't say a word. It could have been a compelling character but the writer/director had no clue what to do with him. A real shame and a real waste for sure.

I wish I would have read more reviews and more opinions about this movie before I rented it. A waste of money. A waste of time. Very little dialog. The dialog was hard to understand in every way. The storyline and plot were both weak. The only thing that was nice at all was the cinematography.

The characters were interesting. At the same time you will spend so much time trying to figure things out, because of the lack of dialog, that you will be rewinding the movie a lot.

Do not watch this movie. It was a mess and will leave you feeling like a mess.

You will say, what the heck was that, when the movie ends?

The only reason I rented this movie was that Val Kilmer rarely stars in a bad movie. There is of course a first time for everything. In many ways, this movie proves that oaters aren't as easy to make as we think, especially by foreign directors. The only one who got by with it was probably Sergio Leone, but even his movies lacked that something indefinably innate to our American psyche and panache. American actors in Clint Eastwood and Henry Fonda did help . I can see now why they changed the original title from "Summer Love" to " Dead Man's Bounty". That itself tells me the producers and director didn't have any core understanding about a western other than those standard shoot'em up scenes and violent themes. I suppose we can say the same about American directors attempting to make a Polish movie while failing miserably in the process.

I mean, come on! Now my countrymen have started to make westerns! Is it not enough that our cinema sucks already? Now you need to infect English-language movies with Polish acting and no sense whatsoever? Please, stay away from this movie, do not waste your eyes on it. A 5-year-old baby could make a movie that makes more sense. I am from Poland and I am ashamed this title might actually be watched by you. Please, I am begging you, do NOT watch this movie and if you do, do NOT judge Polish people and Polish movies based on what you see there. We had some good movies in our history and we had some bad ones but this one - it is like nothing worse that I have seen in my entire life. Keep away!!!

The first thing anyone should know before watching this movie is that the "western" actors have thick Polish accents. It might seem like a mortal flaw, but I got over that by assuming the setting was an Eastern European settlement in Texas.

The thing that always amazes me about so many foreign films that make it to the American market is the vast descrepancy between the movie's pros and cons. On one hand, you have a rough plot that seems to drag on while offering a series of shocking yet in their own right interesting scenes. Again, how can you overlook cowboys with Polish accents? On the other hand, the cinematography was beautiful. In some places, quite creative and all together very well filmed. The soundtrack was a quirky throw-back but used in a way that made it feel dark. On a scene-by-scene basis the editing was more Hollywood than retro despite the fact that as a whole it didn't seem to flow as well as movies we're used to. And again, if you can pretend the actors are supposed to have accents, they do a very good job of playing their roles - disgusting, every one of them.

Bottom line: if you're into quirky, unpolished movies that lack plot flow but excel in cinematography and creativity (and don't mind copious amounts of realistic gore) this movie is quite an offering. Otherwise, it's unlikely to satisfy.