La revanche de Jessie Lee

With Posse I believe they had a great IDEA for a movie, but unfortunately great ideas is only where it starts. Poor acting, bad direction, and unbelievable characters all added to this flop. It seems the director was torn between screening a serious look at blacks in the wild west or a parody of a western. Either of which, he failed miserably at.

Ok, maybe Posse can't compare to other popular cowboy/western movies. But that's because it didn't have the FUNDING those movies had. Obviously, whenever you want to produce a story such as this one, focusing on African American historical involvement (and NO, servants and 'mammies' are not historical involvement), Hollywood isn't going to be too supportive. And believe me they weren't. The producers and actors sacrificed a lot of 'out of pocket' expenses to make "Posse", just so that the story could be told. I think that alone is commendable. Posse may not be Oscar material (and they don't like Black media too much either), but it is a start. It is entertaining, and it introduces us to the black cowboy, a character most of us are unfamiliar with.

Visually stunning, extremely rich in detail, fast action sequences, innovative camera movements, and an historic interpretation of afro-americans settling in the west in the late 800's, this movie is highly unconventional. The more recent "Wild Wild West" has some similarities, "The Ballad of Cable Houge" comes to mind. Using comedy, fantasy, surrealism, the plot has a group of afro-americans traveling with a case of gold, chased by a posse. They join a settlement of afro-americans in the West, which while free by law, are reminded by the neighboring white towns that their liberty of action does not border out of their free town, and their law does not apply to white people. In a poignant scene, the only white man, who was in the original group of afro-americans with the case of gold, is brutally killed in public view by the white neighbors, almost to demonstrate that a white folk that joins the black folks has reached his lowest social status, lower that simply a black man, which by law cannot be killed without reason.

Posse is a stylish but messy modern yet revisionist black western from actor/director Mario Van Peebles which does suffer from a flabby middle part.

Billy Zane relishes as the sadistic yet curiously camp Colonel Graham who sends some of his men on a mission to rob Spanish gold but intends to kill them all afterwards.

Some of these men are black including Jessie (Van Peebles) and they manage to escape but Graham and his gang are behind them. However Jessie has demons from the past and rides to a town to avenge the death of his preacher father which includes the nasty sheriff (Richard Jordan.)

The film is bold, brash, anachronistic as well as a history lesson on the impact of African Americans on the western genre which has been swept under the carpet of history.

Van Peebles is doing too much and loses focus on the narrative of this film hence why the middle sags before picking up again. Some of the acting is broad The script is uneven, its over directed but Van Peebles manages to still fire the film with enough mischief and helped out by his actors such as Blair Underwood, Woody Strode, Paul Bartel, Richard Jordan and Billy Zane.

So a great concept, such great actors, and what do we get nada, zip, zippo, caput, no more, out the door, so long, good bye, mierda. This film has its good points but the script just did not go anywhere. Alot of the characters just went back and forth in their personalities, others just never really made a difference. Some talked like they were time travelers from the future (hint, hint Tone Loc). Others just wouldnt shut up (Weezie). One thing i just couldnt wrap my mind around was this if in the future the old man is holding a picture of the cast. How could that be possible if most of them died before they could all meet? Its like one of those time paradoxes that gives you a head ache. Not to mention the ending was a bit melodramatic to say the least. All in all i give Posse a "A" for effort but "F" on delivery.