Back in April, Melissa and I saw a pretty good little western entitled Blackthorn (you can read her review here). The film starred Sam Shepard as the famous outlaw Butch Cassidy, who was thought to have been killed in1908 by the Bolivian military after evading capture for so many years and is now living under the alias James Blackthorn.
I personally had mixed feelings about the film. I thought it looked great and thought the idea behind the story was pretty original, and while there may have been instances of great filmmaking, there were also moments reminiscent of B-rated acting that would kill the film’s momentum. It’s a slow and beautiful film that has a pretty good climax but it wasn’t a film thoroughly engrossing as I watched it.
It’s been said (but unsubstantiated) that Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed in a standoff with the Bolivian military in 1908. In BLACKTHORN, Cassidy (Shepard) survived, and is quietly living out his years under the name James Blackthorn in a secluded Bolivian village. Tired of his long exile from the US and hoping to see his family again before he dies, Cassidy sets out on the long journey home. But when an unexpected encounter with an ambitious young criminal (Eduardo Noriega) derails his plans, he is thrust into one last adventure, the likes of which he hasn’t experienced since his glory days with the Sundance Kid.
That being said, the first hald of the trailer does a good job of setting the film up while the second half makes the film look like a shoot ’em up type of western, which it isn’t. The film is all about the characters and their relationships, the action doesn’t really come into play until the third act of the film. Now click play and then share your thoughts on the trailer for Mateo Gil’s Blackthorn
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