The Last Rites of Ransom Pride

A plus for Canadian westerns over Italian westerns is no lip-synch. That pretty much sums it up. There isn't a lot a film crew can do with $8MUSD, and this crew was no exception. Despite a rock solid performance by Dwight Yoakum and good walk-on by Kris Kristofferson, they were the only ones taking their roles seriously. Everyone else involved in the film, most especially the writers, knew this stinker was headed straight to Netflix on demand and exerted themselves accordingly. It's too bad, because if they hadn't been going for bizarre there were elements here of a worthwhile story. Over-the-top performances really kill any character development that begins to rise up, and the indiscriminate use of flashbacks is done just to re-use film and extend run-time without doing anything for the story. I can't believe they actually bothered to bring this dog to Blu- Ray. If you can watch it for free on Popcorm using your Roku and have nothing else to do, have at it. Otherwise, get out and mow the lawn, weed the garden. It's a better use of your time.

So you want to make a western, but not just a western. Nooooo. This is gonna be a Work of art too. So we add some weird color scheme and a lot of fixed camera settings on plants and desolate landscapes. Some strange music on top and let the plot unfurl really slooow. Now this takes the western up to art level, right? WRONG!! This is the recipe for a bad movie. Same thing happened for the french adaption of the comic Blueberry. What you get is a pretentious nothing. There have been several westerns deserving the art stamp. (The Searchers, The good bad & ugly, The unforgiven, to name a few), but these always worked within the boundaries of how a western should be, namely entertaining. This one definitely doesn't fit the bill.

The people who gave this a bad review clearly do not understand the B rate movie genre. I stumbled upon this little gem by accident and really liked from the start. By 10 minutes in I was on the edge of my seat wondering what the director was going to do next. I'm not going to spoil this by providing plot clues and tidbits about exciting scenes. I'm just going to give my impression and let you decide for yourselves. This movie is well casted. The script isn't awful. The cinematography is gripping. The story line is fitting of the genre. The acting is OK. Suspend disbelief for a few moments, just remember that it's B Rate, and enjoy it for what it is.

The Last Rites Of Ransom Pride is definitely one weird western where the central character takes a step down from Sharon Stone in terms of social standing. Her boyfriend is the title character played at the beginning and in flashbacks by Scott Speedman and he's gunned down by someone he did not suspect at the beginning. But she promises him as the life oozes out of him on the town street to get his body back across the border for burial.

Speedman comes from a large clan named Pride. Speedman's dad is Reverend Dwight Yoakum who wears the title loosely and his uncle is Kris Kristofferson. They're not the greatest specimens of humanity ever, but they resent their son taking up with a prostitute. And one that shoot and fight like Lizzy Caplan. At least Sharon Stone in The Quick And The Dead was a good girl in an infinitely better film.

Not only do they hold Speedman against Caplan, but now she's involved with another Pride played by Jon Foster. And all the poor girl wants to do is the right thing by her dead boyfriend.

The Last Rites Of Ransom Pride is one terrible waste of good actors and good country singers.

I love the western genre enough that often I can accept a lesser entry of the genre despite its shortcomings. However, in the case of "The Last Rites of Ransom Pride", there are far more shortcomings than good elements. Actually, I can't recall any good elements at all! Though higher budgeted than most other Canadian films, it seems that they blew most of the money on rounding up that cast, since the visual look of the movie is horrible. The movie looks really cheap, due to a combination of threadbare production values and the always unwise decision to wash out any vibrant colors. But what is worse is the direction and the script. The story plays out in a very muddled way, so that despite the core story (sort of) making sense, there are details that are so badly explained (if explained at all) that you'll be scratching your head. And despite a running length of only 82 minutes, the movie plods on at a really slow pace, mainly due to there not being a heck of a lot of plot. Though there are a lot of annoying arty and self conscious moments It's evident that the filmmakers were trying for something different, but ironically they almost certainly would have made a better movie had they tried to be more conventional.