No.248 : The Duel (2016)

The Duel at the IMDb

Woody out of ‘Cheers’ and the less successful Hemsworth brother star in this derivative western that starts out in decent, if predictable fashion, but ends in farce.

The film opens in 1863 after some captions tell us about the Mexican / American War and the uneasy truce that now exists. The Texas Rangers have been set up to keep the peace but frontier justice still prevails. We meet a bald Woody in the rain who is about to take part in a ‘Helena Duel’ which sees the two men tied arm to arm, armed with a small knife each. They then get all stabby with each other until only one is left standing. Woody, not surprisingly as he’s the headline actor, wins the day but the body of his dead opponent is mourned over by the corpse’s now orphaned son. Bet that’s significant!

We fast forward 22 years and that mourning son is now a Texas Ranger in the shape of Liam Hemsworth. He’s called in by his boss, Death out of ‘Bill & Ted’, and asked to investigate a series of dead Mexicans who are showing up in the river. They suspect Woody is involved as he has a secret settlement just upstream. Rather implausibly he sends Liam undercover on the pretext that sending a garrison would be problematic and says that our hero should report back with his findings.

Liam is a modern henpecked man with a Mexican wife who nags him into taking her along. The two head into town and are soon welcomed, with Woody appointing Liam as sheriff. He is meant to come over as all culty but that turns out to be a spelling mistake, as he has designs on the wife and in brainwashing the town. As is standard, he has a sadistic and dim son who sets about the hooker with a heart with his knife. At times it’s like western cliché bingo here!

Woody’s wise words start to turn Liam’s wife’s head and when she gets ill things start to fall apart. Liam susses out Woody’s grand scheme and is captured - he’s then set loose to be hunted by Woody’s paying customers . Can he survive and win his woman back? Is this about revenge or just a long metaphor about the poor treatment of Mexican immigrants? Or maybe it’s just a directionless mess with more unintentional laughs than drama?

This was a strange film, it was almost like several scripts had been cut into pieces and randomly stuck back together. The opening brutal scene of the knife fit was well done and I expected this to be a film about revenge and redemption. It was fine that they chose not to go down this path, but the route taken instead was signposted ‘Ridiculousness’.

Woody was portrayed as the Messiah type figure who perhaps had supernatural powers, but after an hour it was revealed that he was only running a ’Westworld’ type operation, where patrons could shoot Mexicans for $200 a pop. It would have worked too if his idiot son hadn’t dumped the bodies in the river rather than bury them as instructed!

Liam uncovers the terrible conspiracy but is captured. Amazingly Woody makes him the subject of the next hunt but also gives him a rifle and ammo. Predictably Liam takes out all of the red shirts and our two headliners have the duel of the title. And what a laugh it is! The two shoot at each other for five minutes whilst ten feet apart. Then, low on bullets, Liam tips a big rock onto Woody Wile E. Coyote style. Now trapped with his leg pinned Woody goes all ‘127 Hours’ and stabs his own leg off with a penknife. It is glorious in its mentalness.

There is no big lesson here apart from don’t watch this whilst drinking red wine or you’re liable to redecorate your walls with each burst of outrageous action.

It may have been that the film set out to redefine the western a la ‘Bone Tomahawk’ and lost its nerve, but it ended up as risible nonsense that had more laughs than a tickling convention.

THE Tag Line : You Mexican’t Be Serious 41%

 

No.122 : The Grand (2007)

The Grand at the IMDb

An ensemble cast try to do for poker what Christopher Guest did for dog shows and amateur dramatics in ‘Best in Show’ and ‘Waiting for Guffman’. The results are pretty uneven but if you like poker there will be enough here to keep you interested. Needless to say if you don’t like poker, get your jollies elsewhere.

The film uses the familiar documentary format as we follow six poker players who are preparing for the titular tournament which is worth $10 million, winner take all. The main character is played by Woody Harrelson. He’s spent the last three years in rehab and has had 70 wives - and that’s just his own. He’s motivated to win the tournament as he owes $6 million to Michael McKean’s property developer character and if he loses his family casino, ‘The Rabbit’s Foot’, will be bulldozed.

We also get ‘The German’ played by Werner Herzog who is as mean as his name suggests and he  kills an animal a day to get himself in the mood. Next up is Andy, played by Larry David’s idiot cousin off ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ who plays a hapless internet qualifier who is enjoying a freak streak of luck - or could he be bluffing?

Fourth at the table is Phil off ‘The Sopranos’ who represents the old school of leg breaking poker players, fifth, a semi autistic pro who has George Costanza’s mother in tow and lastly siblings David Cross and Cheryl Hines who are a bit of a dick and is married to Ray Romano respectively.

The film is held together by two sports anchors who run through profiles of each of the characters by way of giving us an introduction to each. We also follow their preparations and hear them rant before the tournament gets under way. The early rounds of the tournament are a bit of a waste of time as we are already certain as to who the last six players will be. This does give the opportunity to show some real life poker players such as Brunson, Helmuth and Negrano acting badly for a bit of screen time.

As the final table is seated we wonder which of our favourites will win through and what will happen afterwards as those predictable captions over the credits round off a very by the numbers offering.

I quite liked this film despite its obvious shortcomings and lack of ambition. Much of the script was improvised and that was apparent given the small number of laughs. The characters were caricatures of your usual poker stereotypes and it was hard to engage with any of them, even Woody who was set up to be our favourite.

The tried device of having dueling sports anchors hold the piece together was a waste, especially as it has been done so much better in films like ‘Dodgeball’ and ‘Best in Show’. The idea that one was constantly trying to pitch his own merchandise got old very quickly and the other lacked any personality.

The usually reliable David Cross was forgettable as the ‘Bad Boy of Poker’ although I did smile at his rubbish website address acquired after all the good ones had been taken. Hines and Romano didn’t play well together and it wasn’t clear why she was with the nerd with a fixation for fantasy football.

It was fun to see fleeting glimpses of Jason Alexander and Michael McKean among others but there were so many talking heads vying for attention that it just seemed like a scatter gun approach with nothing sticking to the screen or to our memories for any length of time.

The final table showdown, which was seemingly played for real, offered nothing but an anti-climax and you have to wonder if a tight script and some dramatic tension couldn’t have helped this film to a full house rather than the 7-2 off suit that it delivered.

THE Tag Line -  Busted Flush! 57%