Okay, so here’s the deal. A Sam Raimi-directed Western. Cool, let’s run with it. Does it star Bruce Campbell as the lead? No? Hmmm. Well, okay, he can’t kick ass in every Sam Raimi movie. Replaced with...Sharon Stone? WaitWhat? Are you fuckin with me here? Kinda seems like you’re fuckin with me here. Yes. Definitely. Fuckins with all of us here.
A gunfighter rides into the town of Redemption, just in time for the big annual Showdown competition, which has a considerable kitty of cash for the prize so it attracts a wide range of characters. But our main protagonist is a bit differently skilled, as she is a woman. Whhhhaaaaa?!? IF you can get past that, you are on the dirt road to a shooty-town and some nicely grim showdowns, as that is, as stated, the basis of the movie. It’s...not deep.
No matter how many inventive shots and cool actors employed and even big-name actors in the cast, it’s still really hard to buy the Sharon Stone main lead. It’s not a comedy. But no matter how many dramas and heavy foreshadowings and flashbacks you lay on me, no. As a stylized take on the Old West, Sharon Stone looks too good and is too clean. Suspensions of disbelief there are blown. And the story itself is so not subtle, it’s almost comical, at least, in that regard. It is successful in creating a hyper-realized cartoonish Western, complete with a lot of clean bullet wounds right through some unfortunate gunslingers. All I can say is it probably would have been a better movie if it cast Bruce Campbell in the lead, but would’ve made the father-daughter flashbacks with Gary Sinise a little weird. I woulda still bought that more than this though because, you know what, I’m pretty sure Sharon Stone doesn’t have a female peni. No, I can’t leave it like that. It’s still a pretty fun Western with a ridiculous premise and absolutely amazing female empowerment message to share. Ahem. And some cool camerawork.
