Film Reviews by CPJR

This is a very poor low budget war movie. The title gives you the impression that you will be watching an epic movie, how wrong it is!

The story is about a small American unit who must on-rushing German in the Ardennes and ends with the infamous massacre at Maldemy.

The only good thing I can say about this movie was poignant end credits which inform you of the American soldiers who received decorations for their bravery during the Battle of Bulge which takes up about 10 minutes and is out of sync where the movie ends. Maybe the credit should also have named the American Soldiers who were massacred by the Germans.

If you want to watch a war film about the battle in the Ardennes, watch Ken Annakin 1965 film of the same name or the 1969 movie ‘Castle Keep’ with Burt Lancaster.

This movie was not on my watch list and it was sent out to me by Cinema Paradiso, I must have done something wrong to be sent to me! I am sorry if I have Cinema Paradiso!

The movie is a very poorly made. At first sight I thought it was going to be ‘Kill Bill’ meets ‘Escape from New York’ based on the cover and the brief description of the movie, how wrong I was!

I think the is a story about a gang wanting to take control off Neo Orlando after a mega-Tsunami and a former resident who was a gang member who returns homes to prevent it happening hit but due to the poor quality that occurs throughout the movie the story makes no sense.

The sound quality is very poor, At times it can be very difficult, in fact impossible, to hear what the actors are saying due to the background music been in the foreground then suddenly the sounds would swap and then you would hear the actors are saying. Maybe it was intentions of the movie makers to do this or the distributors of the dvd have mixed up the sound when producing the disc, who cares!

It has some of the worst fight scenes I have seen in movie with poor choreographing and editing of them!

The movie reminds me of the Z-movies from the fifties having no budget but worse. It appears to be film school student movie and was funded by the State of Florida.

Avoid at all cost unless you want to study how to make a very bad movie! I would give it no stars if I could!

It’s appears that Ti West must have watched a lot of westerns mainly from the 1950s then from the spaghetti westerns that the other reviews have suggested when he came up with the idea of this western. There is very little gunplay, none in the 1st half movie as Ti West tries to built up the tension.

Inspiration for the dog appears to come from John Wayne’s “Hondo” and “Big Jake” and the opening scene remind me of the John Wayne’s opening encounter in the “Shootist”.

This is a revenge western in that Ethan Hawke plays a loner with a past similar to the characters that Gary Cooper played in “Man of the West” and “The Hanging Tree” and his partner is a dog. They are on their way to Mexico and decide to stop in a two-bit town instead of going round it. After an altercation with the marshal’s son they carry on their journey but are attacked by the marshal’s son and his cronies. Hawke is left for dead and the dog is murdered. He returns back to the town to exact revenge for the dog!

John Travolta plays the marshal of the Denton who has got it bottled up and tries to do the right thing but his son is no good and he knows it. He tries to stop his son getting killed by Hawke.

The ending is pure ‘High Noon’.

If you have watched a number of westerns from the 1950s there is nothing you have not seen before. In some ways this movie reminds me of watching a Tarantino movie and seeing where Ti West got his ideas from.

Overall this is not a bad movie if you like westerns and it should keep you entertained.