Purgatory

After committing a bank robbery, a large group of outlaws led by Blackjack Britton are on the run. So Britton leads his men across the desert, which they come across a quiet little town called Purgatory, where the strange locals don't carry guns, or even curse, but they really make them welcome. This very helpful gesture spurs Britton to stir up a racket and take over the town, but one of his men, a young wannabe, Sonny, doesn't share Britton's idea and he finds himself picking up some unusual hints of something otherworldly about the town and its inhabitants.

What a nice surprise the cable TV movie, "Purgatory", actually turned out to be. It's far from your conventional western. Well, there's some formulaic western stakes within it, but it does have a weird novelty behind it that wouldn't feel out-of-place in a "Twilight Zone" episode. This unique sprinkle and along with a appealing cast made it a very engrossing and delightful viewing, despite that it's pretty much a sleeper when building up the story and the mysterious twist engulfing the presentation forces itself on us too suddenly and rather obviously. I could go on about the whole twist and the story has a few layers to peel off, but its better to just know that it involves a group of outlaws who have made names for themselves. Like Bill Hicock, Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Doc Holliday. Now that's a great line-up! The story kind a follows a redemption angle, where it's all about choice and a chance to make good, but despite this option there are temptations you must face, before accepting your fate. Gladly none of it becomes too overwrought. There are some creative juices flowing here amongst a very solid looking production. The film opens and closes with thrilling and well-staged gunfights. Dynamic wise, the fruitful cast gel impeccably well, involving the likes of Eric Roberts killing it, as Blackjack Britton and then you got Brad Rowe as the naïve Sonny. Peter Stonmore gives a stand-out performance as the crackpot sidekick of Britton, Cavin. Some of the town's folk you see kicking back are played by Randy Quaid, Sam Elliott, Donnie Wahlberg, J.D. Souther and the stunning Amelia Heinle. What got me more than anything, was the production was very well mounted with smoothly displayed photography that captured the vastness and close details that sprawled along the screen and a sulky, fine-tuned score that created an eerie howl, really does lift it out of the very stuffy mould of TV features.

A very curious piece that just doesn't go anywhere big with its fascinating concept, but still it's surely entertaining.

Outlaws heading for Mexico stumble across a small town called Refuge, where no one carries a weapon and everyone welcomes strangers with open arms. Problem is, these outlaws aren't having any of it, and decide to burn down the place. Refuge, as we quickly discover, is actually the Purgatory of the Bible, and is populated by such western stalwarts as Wild Bill Hicock and Doc Holliday. For these familiar figures, there is a vexsome problem: if they take to violence, they will get shipped off to Hell post-haste. What's a man to do? A wonderful TV western, fanciful and dramatic at the same time. Several familiar actors including Sam Shepherd (erroneously listed as Sam Elliott on some electronic TV guides), Eric Roberts and Randy Quaid keeps things hopping.

There quite often comes a time when a film fan who is so enamoured with a specific genre or style of film making, comes across a picture that one knows is far from perfect if deconstructed frame by frame, but still loves it with every breath they take. Purgatory is one such film for myself.

Purgatory, a TNT TV production, is that rare old beast of the Western fused with fantastical or supernatural elements. More often than not this is a blend that proved to be disastrous, hence why there are so few films of this type put into production here in the modern era. Yet director Uli Edel and producer Daniel Schneider pulled it off back in 1999, my only regret is that it took me so long to let it into my cinematic life.

The title is something of a give away, thus rendering the supposed twist as being hardly surprising. However, it was not the intention of the film makers to hoist a Sixth Sense surprise on us, really it wasn't. We are asked to put ourselves into the young Greenhorn shoes of Leon "Sonny" Miller (Brad Rowe) and experience his own coming of age awakening. From dime novels and hero worship to first kills and first loves, Sonny is our conduit and the key holder to the gates of redemption for many of the Wild West's legendary characters.

The cast is a veritable feast of splendid character actors playing a veritable feast of iconic real life people. Sam Shepard, Eric Roberts, Randy Quaid, Peter Stormare, Donnie Wahlberg and J.D. Souther. While Brad Fiedel provides a musical score of some magnificent beauty, a piece that revels in heroic swirls and escalating emotions, it darts around the town of "Refuge" like a novelist writing a dime novel soon to go down in folklore legend.

Budget restrictions are hidden very well, Edel and his cinematographer William Wages prove adept at lighting techniques and scene staging. Be it keeping things in the shade or cloaking a sequence with believable dust clouds, there's a professional touch here that puts the pic into the upper echelons of TV movies.

Then there's the action, a key component for so many Western fans, and thankfully Purgatory is book-ended by superb action sequences, with the finale a skilled lesson in shoot-out choreography and machismo pulse beats. And then there's the emotional kickers, ready to be embraced by those who still yearn to have the spirit lifted and the heart gladdened.

I could write a whole weighty paragraph on Purgatory's flaws, maybe even point out thematically what I think will annoy others, because for sure not everything works. But as a Western movie lover I found myself cheering at the film's end, even wiping away a damn fly from my eye. That's job done for me, a Western that tickled and teased my every emotion, wonderful. 10/10

Purgatory plays like a ninety-four episode of "The Twilight Zone", that despite a few predictable twists, is still a lot of fun to watch and a cut above the usual made-for-television western of the last twenty years or so.

Production values are good and so is the familiar cast of character actors, led by baddies Eric Roberts and Peter Stormare, with Sam Shepherd, Randy Quaid, Donnie Walberg, and R.G. Armstrong in his last western appearance so far. They all do a great job, with Roberts and Stormare playing it nice and rowdy.

Interestingly enough, co-stars R.G.Armstrong and John Dennis Johnston appeared together eighteen years earlier in the southern-fried horror flick The Beast Within.

This is pretty much a pleasant - albeit unspectacular - film. It is very watchable with a predictable fantasy theme running through it.

The theme of people realising that they are at some sort of halfway house between Heaven and Hell, awaiting divine judgement, is not new and has been well portrayed in earlier films. This film however, reworks the formula in a western setting. It is certainly watchable and is quite well made for a TV movie.