Genre
Action | Drama | Western
Director
Gavin O'Connor
Country
USA
Cast
Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Noah Emmerich, Rodrigo Santoro, Boyd Holbrook, Ewan McGregor, Alex Manette, James Burnett, Sam Quinn
Storyline
Jane (Natalie Portman) asks her former fiancé (Joel Edgerton) for help in order to save her outlaw husband (Noah Emmerich) from a gang out to kill him.
Opinion
After years of a troubled production - and me waiting because I really wanted to see Natalie Portman in a western - "Jane Got a Gun" finally got released this year, and man what a disappointment. The film is indeed dull, emotionless and doesn't have any element to really redeem itself.
This story - which I won't be repeating again but you can read it above - has been done over and over again, and even though the filmmakers decided to put a woman as the lead and hero of the story, it still has that already-seen feeling.
Because of the extremely slow pace, and long silences at times alternated with awfully written dialogues, the filmmakers thought it was a brilliant idea to add an humongous amount of flashbacks. But while the first couple of them are quite well placed and do have a point, the rest not only are not needed but also completely disjointed, and that's how the filmmakers decided to tell us the backstory. Stupidity after stupidity.
So what you get from that are characters with a tremendous backstory that however don't have any development whatsoever; nor they have something interesting to make you care about them.
On the other hand we have the action which is not outstanding, but isn't bad either. There are some pretty well done action sequences, that's it. Honestly I was expecting a lot more action, but I'm still not sure how (or if) that affected the film.
Then there is the cast that is basically the only reason I wanted to see this flick. And overall they do a good job. But it's not the case of Natalie Portman which is passive for much of the film and makes you wonder how is that even the same woman from "Black Swan".
This story - which I won't be repeating again but you can read it above - has been done over and over again, and even though the filmmakers decided to put a woman as the lead and hero of the story, it still has that already-seen feeling.
Because of the extremely slow pace, and long silences at times alternated with awfully written dialogues, the filmmakers thought it was a brilliant idea to add an humongous amount of flashbacks. But while the first couple of them are quite well placed and do have a point, the rest not only are not needed but also completely disjointed, and that's how the filmmakers decided to tell us the backstory. Stupidity after stupidity.So what you get from that are characters with a tremendous backstory that however don't have any development whatsoever; nor they have something interesting to make you care about them.
On the other hand we have the action which is not outstanding, but isn't bad either. There are some pretty well done action sequences, that's it. Honestly I was expecting a lot more action, but I'm still not sure how (or if) that affected the film.
Then there is the cast that is basically the only reason I wanted to see this flick. And overall they do a good job. But it's not the case of Natalie Portman which is passive for much of the film and makes you wonder how is that even the same woman from "Black Swan".
I haven't even heard of this film. I usually like westerns and Ewan McGregor, but this film doesn't sound that great and I hated Black Swan....sorry:)
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you wouldn't like this. I'm actually having a hard time believing there's people liking it.
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