Jane Got a Gun (2016)

Review

98min

Genre:      Western, Drama

Director:   Gavin O’Connor

Cast:        Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor…and more

Writers:    Brian Duffield, Anthony Tambakis & Joel Edgerton

-Synopsis-

In the post civil-war American west; a Southern belle recruits an old flame to help protect her reformed outlaw husband from his brutal ex-gang and their ruthless leader in this western/drama from the director of ‘Warrior’.

After suffering a revolving door of changes which included the original director, cinematographer and major stars leaving the project; not to mention several production issues and release delays, the omens were not good for ‘Jane Got a Gun’, and unfortunately for star/producer Natalie Portman it clearly shows in the final product.

Portman stars as “Jane” herself, a young woman hardened by tragedy and the unforgiving realities of 19th century American living. While the rest of the unsteady international cast finally settled on Joel Edgerton as her former lover and hired gun, protecting them from Ewan McGregor’s outlaws.

Considering ‘Jane Got a Gun’ has already been labelled a “feminist” western, from the Aerosmith-inspired name alone you’d be forgiven for thinking this is an ass-kicking girl-power flick along the lines of 1994’s ‘Bad Girls’, essentially an all-female ‘Young Guns’.

However this is a more considered film with a female-centric point of view that’s as much a human/relationship drama as it is a true western, a mother’s wrath unleashed within a familiar western revenge narrative if you will. Unfortunately for Portman & Co., you’ll often wish they all just went “down in a blaze of glory”… for entertainment sake at least.

From the constant character-building flashbacks which kill the film’s momentum and set an uneven tone, to the unconvincing love triangle narrative and romance-novel sentimentality; there’s not much here in terms of characters or story to sink your teeth into, which is made worse by the lack of any humour or real tension to cling on to.

Portman and Edgerton do deliver typically solid performances though, and there is a nice poignant tragic twist and a decent final action set-piece to enjoy. But even that gets sanitized by a convenient and predictable conclusion which undermines the tragedy that was built on throughout the film.

The Bottom Line…

Natalie Portman’s troubled western/drama was likely doomed from the start despite her best efforts;  this poorly executed patchwork of western tropes and sentimental drama fails to captivate or offer anything substantial to the genre, while being moderately entertaining and largely forgettable.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Similar films you may like (Home Video)

Hannie Caulder (1971)

Betrayed and violated by a group of outlaws; a beautiful young woman in the old American west recruits a dangerous bounty hunter to teach her the way of the gun so she can dish out a dose of frontier justice to the men that wronged her .

Directed by Burt Kennedy and starring Raquel Welch, Robert Culp and Ernest Borgnine among others.

Comments

comments

Comments are closed.