Redemption
(North American Motion Pictures; $26.99)
By: Henry Cabot Beck 01/01/2009
While first tier, well-budgeted Westerns like Appaloosa are infrequent these days, the labor-of-love indie Western will always have its champions.
Freshly released on DVD is Redemption, which stands for a goal—on the part of desperado Frank Harden (Dustin Leighton)—and as the name of the town where the action takes place, and which has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The sordid burg is peopled with warring factions of cretins, ala A Fistful of Dollars, and a lot of public death and sex.
Redemption will never be mistaken for a good Western—the structure and writing are bad, the direction is weak and most of the acting is coming from either bedrock or the belfry, by which I mean some actors are trying for a kind of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef underplaying, while other want to be Eli Wallach or Klaus Kinski. I guess everybody brings their own pasta favorites to a potluck, but it’s the director’s job to bring them all online. Filmmaker Robert Conway has a ways to go in managing a production.
That said, the picture has an interesting undertow, some serious carnage and a few curious twists, which is what one looks for in a movie like this. With diminished expectations and some historic perspective, the movie is fun enough.
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