Homestead

It sure had me going until it bogged down. Characters mumbled their lines so I missed 80% of the dialog. So contrived. A bunch of bad guys.. an outlaw band.. and they don't have a horse? It has its moments, but ultimately turned boring. The soundtrack music was cheap and out of place... like from some cheesy film from the eighties. It was ultimately an amateurish production. Filmmaking is an art, and this movie lacked expertise in direction. Very good premise... the beginning really hooked me... but as it deteriorated, and revealed itself to be an amateur production, I lost interest, struggled to stay awake, and turned it off. Must have been a shoestring budget... no horses! A western and no horses....the bad guys just walking around for miles.. like something from Monty Python.

This movie starts off well enough, it looks good and while the dialogue is iffy (as it remains throughout the movie), it clearly establishes the main characters. Once a new character enters shortly after, there's actually a great deal of tension. Then DDP shows up and it all goes limp, slumping to the floor and never getting back up.

The synopsis and setup make you think this little girl is going to be a total badass and save her family. Sligh's acting was so good that I was actually becoming invested and looking forward to see her become that hero. But she is totally wasted and the story suddenly becomes ill-paced, generic, and predictable. The tension dies as the movie slowly and weirdly shifts antagonist motive, gives us action that is unimaginative and either happening offscreen or onscreen with terrible special effects, and becomes increasingly clear with us that we're not getting the David vs Goliaths battle we were waiting for. The character is actually given a disappointingly small amount to do. And that's too bad because the actress was ready to give us something special. The writing really let her down and the movie ultimately lets us all down. Bottom line, watch "Becky" instead.

This is not a movie. It's the first episode of a TV show. DO NOT waste your money going to see this. I wouldn't watch this even on a free service like Pluto TV.

The storyline started out interesting but at every turn it went the wrong direction. The dialogue and acting are also terrible.

There were audience members that left half way through the show. It's absolutely terrible. I've never said anything like this before about a movie. I seriously want my money back.

And at the end they ask you to scan a QR code to buy someone else a ticket. The only way I'd scan that QR code is for a refund. Hollywood just scammed me.

I was very excited by the first act of this film, mainly due to the very interesting set of characters. Betsy Sligh in particular stole the show as a feisty adolescent with a professed itch for dangerous adventure, but all four members of her frontier family are excellent and well cast.

The costumes and setting are also very authentic, except for the glaring absence of any farm animals - not even a dog or horse in sight. Even the band of outlaws who turn up arrive on foot!

Said outlaws appear at the start of the second act, and that is where things go awry. This group of characters is not nearly as interesting, starting with the tired old cliche of a "hellfire preacher" leader iof the gang. There's an effort to give the others distinctive personalities and conflicts, but their interactions are muddled, as is the last half of the script.

Although the adolescent fireball Irene is set up as a "Becky" type vengeful warrior, her character soon gets lost in the messy script and has minimal impact.

Making things even worse, this is a movie plagued with the kind of illogical last minute pauses taken by movie villains that allow their victims to escape the jaws of death. Believability goes out the door fairly early and with it any real suspense.

It's too bad the writer-director didn't have someone looking over his shoulder to question his bad decisions. This could have been a minor classic.

Right, well without ever having heard about this 2023 Western titled "Homestead", I opted to sit down and watch it, as I had the opportunity to do so. I must admit that the movie's synopsis sounded interesting enough.

However, writer and director Ehrland Hollingsworth delivered a very bland and generic Western, one that was without much of any thrills, excitement or even a thoroughly thought through storyline. The narrative in "Homestead" was so simplistic that you could leave the movie for a long time and come back and still be up to speed with the events in the narrative. It was that bland, slow paced and monotonous.

The cast in the movie was fair enough. I mean, you're not in for any grand award-winning performances, and the only familiar face was Brian Krause. But given the severe limitations imposed upon them by an inferior script, then the actors and actresses faired well enough.

"Homestead" looked like a Western movie, but just lacked a drive and a proper storyline, and that made sitting through 79 minutes of this movie quite the ordeal. I doubt that even the most hardcore of Western fans will get much of a buzz out of watching writer and director Ehrland Hollingsworth's 2023 movie "Homestead".

The movie's cover had the movie set up for way more than what writer and director Ehrland Hollingsworth could manage to deliver. In fact, the movie's cover was actually the best part about the entire ordeal, sadly so.

My rating of "Homestead" lands on a three out of ten stars.