The Wild West has been captured on film many times. Nowadays, not as many films of this kind are made as before, but there are always films of this genre, because it has a loyal following that enjoys these stories.
What's the plot of Badland?
Matthias Breecher is a man of the law, charged with finding the civil war criminals who have managed to escape. When he finds them, he'll have to enforce the sentence. He must read the sentence and execute it, the chrominal must hang. If any of the war criminals refuse or resist, Breecher will be forced to take extreme measures to enforce the law. But when he finds his targets, his way of life will be tested, especially when you meet the daughter of one of the criminals, you will find in her a reason to have faith in the future and escape from your own purgatory.
To tell us this story about a gunman who is tired of his nomadic life and wants to buy a ranch and establish a normal life, the director has divided it into three chapters, of which the first is the shortest, but with enough action to capture our attention.
The second act, which is longer, is the one that may seem a little boring, because the pace becomes slow, but in the end it is justified, because it is the segment that lays the foundations for the protagonist to question some things. It is in this part, he meets the woman, who will be the reason, more important than his own life, to go on.
In the third part of the film, the pace is set. The protagonist must find his next target. A war criminal who, ironically, is the sheriff of a distant town, is the ruthless man and runs the whole town at his will. Keeping the entire population in fear.
Our hero will face someone with power, who acts like a tyrant. Everything that happens will make him rethink his whole life. He must do his duty, but he also wants to return to the old village and start a new life. Will he do his duty? Will he do justice? Will he make a new life? Or will he die trying?
As in most Westerns, the hero or main character is a lone gunman, doing his job alone, in short and always with an intriguing look, full of secrets and mysteries. It is something that is in the very nature of the genre. Even if the character doesn't make it to the podium of the greats, at least he fulfills the image that we all have engraved in our memory, how these gunmen behave.
The Western is directed by filmmaker Justin Lee, not to be confused with the actor of the same name. Lee is the writer and director of other small films, including another western, a genre that he seems to like quite a lot. His previous western was called Any Bullet Will Do. I haven't seen that western, but I'll start looking for it. It seems that the story is about a bounty hunter who chases a criminal, in the middle of a gold rush. He also has war, post-apocalyptic and action films in his filmography.
The cast of this film is interesting, when I read the names of some good actors, they convinced me to see this independent western.
The actor Kevin Makely is the least known. I looked up his profile on IMDB and saw that he is a film producer. He's a regular actor in Justin Lee's productions. The actor also starred in the filmmaker's previous western, as well as in short performances in movies and series. In this film he plays the hero, Matthias Breecher, which may not be a very histrionic role for him. With few gestures, but with enough charisma to identify with the main character and keep us in the expectation that everything will turn out well for him. I want to see him in other kinds of characters, to determine what kind of actor he is.
The rest of the cast is where there are well-known names in the industry. Oscar and Golden Globe winner Mira Sorvino plays Sarah Cooke, the daughter of a war criminal and our hero's love interest. She will be a compelling reason for the gunman to decide to stay alive and make a new life. Veteran actor Bruce Dern plays Reginald Cooke, Sarah's father whose days are numbered by illness. It's always a pleasure to see an excellent actor, even if it's only for a few scenes. Jeff Fahey, who has experience in films of this genre, and whose face became well known after his participation in the fabulous series Lost, is the one who plays the bloody tyrant Huxley Wainwright.
Westerns always remind me of my childhood, because every weekend I watched those fantastic gunslinger movies on TV. One TV station, every Sunday, broadcast a western. It was on TV that I saw many classics of the genre. Nowadays there are not so many films in this genre, so I'm glad to find some titles that may not be up to the old westerns, but that try to keep this genre alive, for us, who enjoy the duels and shootings of the wild west.
I recommend this film only for western lovers, it didn't meet all my expectations, but the story has interesting twists. It is a production made for television, direct to the Blue-ray
My Ranking: 2.6/5
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