Sweetwater

Ed Harris is having a great time and the viewer shares that enjoyment in this fantastic western. For those who long for a return of "Deadwood" this film should ease your withdrawals for a short time. The cast is uniformly excellent, the cinematography is wonderful and the writing is great. The only shortcoming, for those who like their westerns with a dose of spaghetti, is the soundtrack music. Bloody, violent and lots of fun. Ed Harris deserves much praise. The bleakness of the landscape is quite realistic. You can almost taste the dust and dirt in the air. Much of the secondary cast is also made up of very talented actors. A must watch for fans of true westerns.

January Jones plays the main lead in this and she is really great in this. Ed Harris also has a blast and the movie overall is a nice addition to the western genre. It has all the right ingredients (with added female nudity, which isn't something that is a given of course) and was obviously fun to shoot.

The movie itself which was playing at the Fantasy Filmfest in Germany when I watched it, is predictable because of the known story line (even without me saying where this is going, you'll see it coming from a thousand miles). But the fun you can have with it, is still there, especially if you have a soft spot for Western movies in general

The plot: A psychotic preacher goes too far when he begins indiscriminately murdering innocent people. A manic sheriff and gun-toting ex-prostitute team up to stop him and his followers.

I liked this film, but it's really quite shallow. If you can enjoy a minimalist, high-concept revenge thriller, this is actually pretty enjoyable. Just don't look for anything more than violent action scenes, despicable villains, and violent anti-heroes who would make Clint Eastwood proud.

As I expected, Ed Harris is the highlight of this film. His crazy sheriff is unpredictable, darkly humorous, and fun. The little bits of back story that we were fed make him intriguing, but it's a bit unfortunate that they never capitalized on any of it. I thought that maybe there'd be plot twists and complicated alliances, like a Sergio Leone film, but I guess this isn't that kind of film. No, it's basically a beat-em-up video game where the hero kills all the villain's henchmen and then does a boss fight.

There are quite a few postmodern touches to the film that may annoy old-school Western fans. For one thing, this a modern revenge thriller that's been transposed into a Western setting. As such, I don't think this was really meant to appeal to fans of classic Westerns. Instead, it's going for the Quentin Tarantino crowd, though it could have used more style and quotable dialog. For a poor man's QT film, this is not bad, but I'd recommend the real thing instead.

SWEETWATER is a nicely-done noirish parody of the old spaghetti western. Plot-wise, it's rather predictable, without many big surprises, but it keeps your attention and incorporates steady humor without turning into a complete slapstick joke. Best of all are the very colorful cast of characters: Crazy charlatan cult leader; beautiful, now-married former prostitute who's out to settle down and lead a quiet, simple life; unstable yet nobly maverick sheriff; perverted clothier; and a whole bunch of sheep who contribute a great deal to the story (really, they do).

Intelligently simple entertainment--nothing to be taken too seriously. Great performances by Ed Harris (sheriff) and January Jones (former prostitute).

This movie might not be like the usual old school westerns but I surely enjoyed it. As an atheist I already hated the priest/prophet Josiah from the first minute I saw him. And him being a racist as well he was the perfect character to hate. Jason Isaacs puts down a good performance playing the villain prophet. Ed Harris as the lunatic sheriff Jackson is also great in his role. And so is January Jones as Sarah Ramírez, the former prostitute that goes on a killing spree as revenge. I thought the whole cast did a good job. The story was well written, started slowly but build up to a climax. Certainly one of the better westerns I have seen lately.