The Far Side of Jericho

The story of three women who see their husbands hang for a robbery. They decide to go find the stolen money (aka "loot") after various characters start to hunt them down, thinking that they are already after said loot. After riding for a while, they figure out that they are in possession of pieces of a map that will lead them to the loot. Oh, and did I mention that along the way they each start to see the ghosts of their recently departed husbands? I won't spoil it from here on, but if you have ever seen more than a couple of westerns then you have probably figured out how it ends by now.

While it started off interesting, the plot eventually began to bog down and get very predictable (except for the ghosts, which were just plain weird). We had TiVo'd it, and my wife actually started fast-forwarding through the non-action scenes (of which there are plenty). Not sure exactly how the last five minutes played out, as we fast-forwarded through them as well.

A very boring, yet strange film.

OK? Who besides James Gammon and Patrick Bergin are in this film? Who else do you know? The three principles are faces with no names besides those flashing by in the credits. They're definitely not cutie-pies and the roles they bring to the screen are not your typical Western female hero. One, Maxine (Suzanne Andrews), is a macha-hero-type but the other two, Claire (Judith Burnett), an ex-school marm with a drinking problem married to an abusive bum and Bridgett (Lissa Negrin)is an ex-hooker who actually loves her husband, Billie. These three ladies see their husbands hanged and then chased by everyone else in the picture because they are believed to know where the loot is buried. We see them chased by a drunken, incompetent posse, two bounty hunters, a faux preacher and his gang and then, some Native Americans. While this is not a film to keep you on the edge of your seat, it is an evening's worth of entertainment which goes beyond the sterile iconic old Westerns I and all the other kids of my generation grew up on. All in all, it's better than the average oater.

When three outlaw brothers are hung after a bank robbery, their put upon, over-the-hill wives go hunting for the gang's stashed loot, using their husband's rawhide treasure map. Following them is mean sheriff Patrick Bergin and sleazy preacher/hangman James Gammon.

Sure, this gets high marks for casting three real women in the leading roles instead of the usual dull assemblage of models and twenty-somethings that usually plague these modern feminist westerns, but the ladies are terrible and their unlikable, unsympathetic character's brassy banter is obnoxious, growing quite tiresome quickly. Needless profanity and the "ladies" crude talk about people's balls and stuff are a poor substitute for good dialog!

The decision on the part of the filmmakers to have the women's husbands turn up as ghosts is pretty darn silly and throws out whatever little credibility this has left.

However, the rest of the cast is great. Bergin is good, as is the cameo appearance by C. Thomas Howell, while Gammon is the best thing about the movie and the cinematography, sets, costumes look more like they belong in a top Hollywood production instead of a dreadful B-movie like this.

I say bring the director, producers, and cinematographer. Give them a better screenplay and fire the women. Replace them with some of those twenty-something models I was talking about.

you'll like this weak western. As a enthusiast for bad cinema, I seek out the bad, really bad and unwatchable film, and this film is just plain bad. Beautiful cinematography and stunning film locations juxtapose stilted acting, trite dialogue and pointless plot devices. Add in ghosts, gratuitous vulgar language, racial and ethnic stereotypes, poor sound recording, anachronisms such as automobile tire tracks, stock sound effects from 1950's cowboy serials and cap it off with a muddled script and you get a honest to god, crappy movie. Even the final music will cause spontaneous laughter. If you like bad movies, this one will satisfy, sort of.

Im guessing the big names in this movie just had nothing better to do? Painful to watch and the budget mustve been in the hundreds of dollars.