Dead for a Dollar opens in cinemas on Friday September 30th.
Understandably, cinematic curiosity might pique when you learn that Walter Hill (The Warriors, 48 Hours) has written and directed a new western starring Christoph Waltz and Willem Dafoe, but Dead for a Dollar is a meandering shoot ’em up without one clear direction other than gently squandering the talents of a strong ensemble.
The story of a bounty hunter, Max Borlund (Waltz), hired to rescue a rich man’s kidnapped wife (pssst, she wasn’t kidnapped, she ran off to Mexico with her suitor), Dead for a Dollar offers an interesting build, but then stumbles with it in the second half, unable to continue in a way that satisfactorily serves the story or the characters. Malicious one moment, honorable the next, Max has no real idea of who he is as a peripheral lawman.
Dafoe’s poker-playing bum Joe Cribbens, who harbors a grudge against Max after five years in prison, is a wild card that never means much other than allowing Dafoe and Waltz to occasionally share screen time. That can be fun in itself, but the back of the saga feels like it was written on the fly and stitched together in some random, lazy way. There are inconsequential scenes that don’t need to be there, choices that feel arbitrary, and a larger sense that emerges when the cast and crew use a Wild West set just because it’s there.
Benjamin Bratt, Hamish Linklater, Warren Burke and Brandon Scott round out the cast, with Rachel Brosnahan from The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel playing the fugitive Rachel Price, one of the better defined characters. Because Dead for a Dollar has so many moving – and at times seemingly random – parts, it tries to make things seem dangerous and spontaneous, as if anyone could die at any moment rather unceremoniously. But the film takes itself too seriously to make that kind of playfulness work, so some of the more abrupt moments just fizzle out.
The cast makes the most of this twisting road tale filled with archetypes and eccentrics, but no introduced theme is fully explored. To be fair, Dead for a Dollar is presented humbly. It’s not designed for great impact. Displayed in muted sepia tones (giving it an “authentic” photographic feel while masking some of the budget constraints), it’s meant to play out like a twisted, turning crime thriller with a collision course in mind. Waltz and Dafoe begin the adventure by warning each other to stay away, signaling that fate will bring them together in the end. But will they meet as enemies or unlikely allies?
Brosnahan’s runaway Rachel and Brandon Scott’s AWOL Buffalo Soldier Elijah Jones are lovers, but also mostly realistic, not romantic, dreamers. As a multiracial couple escaping their own hell, they understand the temporary nature of this trek. And while that’s an interesting take, the movie doesn’t quite know what to do with it when Max calls in act one ready to take her home. But Max himself is not a well-established figure anyway. Waltz is always great, but we understand very little about Max and get no indication why he should care about the truth and her plight. Of course, it doesn’t help that Waltz played a better bounty hunter in a far better western a decade ago.
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A surprise here is Warren Burke’s Sergeant Poe, the buffalo soldier who accompanies Max on his hired mission to Mexico. Dead for a Dollar sometimes doesn’t know what to motivate him to do with him either, but there are moments where he actually emerges as the stealth hero of the film. By the end, bullets will have flown, bodies will have fallen, and you’ve definitely seen a movie, but one without much of a creative spark, other than its fun cast. On this journey, there is no one truly sympathetic or utterly obnoxious rolling down the road like a steppe herb.
#Dead #Dollar #Review #IGN
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