Anglerte's Review: Bounty

Do yourself a major favor, do not watch this film. Don’t pay for this, don’t Google this, don’t think about this, do not do anything that may provoke the need to think about this wannabe indie film. If you are interested in being an indie film-maker, particularly in the Western genre, let this film serve as a source of inspiration in the way that it teaches you exactly what not to do. Supposedly this film dragged on for an hour and thirty five minutes, but I barely lasted for eighteen before I felt it necessary to shut it off. Given that I wasted three dollars to rent the film in stunning “High Definition”, along with the fact that I wasted 18 minutes of my life, I will do my best to avoid wasting the readers’ valuable time (more than I already have by warning you to avoid this horrific film) by gunning through all of the negatives aspects one sentence at a time. I would be generous in saying that there was an extreme shortage of positive qualities, so don’t worry about having dig through those.

Every aspect of the film was flawed in at least one way, but most were flooded with plenty more. The screen play as a whole was very poorly written, to the extent where it was questionable whether the motive of the film was to try to produce a decent western film, or just to publish something shot with a video camera that reflected the contents of a shameful piece of paper. Within’ the first thirty seconds of the film, the plot managed to confuse me in an unintelligent fashion; the story didn’t make much sense, none of the characters, from the aggressive and persistent law man to the wannabe “outlaw”, were made realistic in any way through dialogue or through the efforts of the actors. The dialogue itself was very poorly developed, awkward, and unrealistically applied to every encountered scenario (then again, almost every scenario was unrealistically established and underdeveloped) . Most of the acting displayed in the first eighteen minutes of the film was either mediocre or embarrassing. If the dialogue was awkward and unrealistic, the actors decided to enhance the confusion created by these elements by taking on characteristics and tones that did not at all apply to their characters. The main character was labeled at the beginning of the film as an outlaw, and this stands as just about the only recognition of this concept. The old man who randomly approaches the sheriff and the main character from out of nowhere (probably from out of context) at the beginning of the film was a very poorly developed character as a whole; all of his lines are overacted, his dialogue is inconsistent (as are most of the characters presented in the first eighteen minutes of the film), and ultimately he only added to the confusion.

The plot is immensely difficult to describe, for, as I described several times above, I hardly understood it. Don’t worry about any potential spoilers though, because, as you may recall me consistently repeating above, I only watched the first eighteen minutes of the film. Also, you’re not going to watch this film unless, like me, you’re interested in writing a screen play for a western film that will lead to the development of a product that human beings can subject themselves to without fear of emotional/ intellectual damage. If you chose to disregard my warnings, or if in any case you chose to attempt to witness the repulsive content of this film, you will find that the progression of the plot is extremely uncomfortable; in one scene, an old man saves another man from being hanged to death with the understanding that this man could assist with the completion of a difficult “job”. In the next scene, this old man and the “outlaw/ bounty hunter” are situated in an entirely different and seemingly irrelevant location. From there, everything skips around so unbearably quickly that the only reason you may wish to continue watching the film is to try and articulate what you’re actually seeing compared to what you were seeing thirty seconds before.

Overall, the acting was terrible, excluding the haunting childhood flashback of a random woman (she was probably going to be significant later on, but let’s pretend “later on” isn’t applicable to this given scenario) and the questionably devious maneuvers of a corrupt lawman. The script and plot suffered from horrific underdevelopment, the progression of the plot was jarred and inconsistent even in the first eighteen minutes of the film, and even the film locations were poorly attended to; forgivable errors and inconsistencies were present throughout the showcasing of the western town, such as the presence of a chain-link fence in the background of one scene, but of course all such things paled in comparison to the other atrocities committed by the screen play. On the positive side, the color grading was fantastically attended to, from what I observed, as it provided the film with a dirty brownish, goldish, “wild-west” mood. Along with the interior of most locations presented, these concepts were very well attended to for an indie film. For aggressively assaulting and abusing my attention for nearly eighteen minutes and thirty seconds, I award this indie western “horror” (actually, I repeal the latter description, as that would serve as a disgrace to fear) a 2/10, for putting effort into finding a believable location and decent post production work. I firmly believe that Clint Eastwood should have made a cameo at the end of the film and slapped on the title, “Unforgivable”.

I promise that Burnt Banana Sandwich will strive to achieve far more dignity than this in the production of all western-themed films; in truth seeking the creation of a higher quality product than this would be in no way ambitious, except for perhaps the inclusion of livestock.