Welcome, one and all, to an all new Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentleman, I'm taking a look at a Western drama from 2012. That movie is "Dead Man's Burden".
Now, as has been established back in my review of "McQ", I am a huge fan of Westerns. Most of them starring John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. Because Westerns have been a huge part of my childhood. I've grown up watching a lot of classic Westerns, and I still enjoy watching those movies to this day, because they are just that memorable.But the thing is that, while I have seen a lot of classic Westerns, I never really watched a lot of modern Westerns. Now this could attributed to the fact that Westerns sorta fizzled out of popularity in the late 70's to early 80's. Now that isn't to say that there weren't Westerns being made after the genre had lost it's popularity. After all, I remember films such as "Pale Rider", "Tombstone", and "Django Unchained", and they were all great films. Well, I can say "Pale Rider" and "Django Unchained" were great films. I haven't seen "Tombstone", but I've heard nothing except good things about that movie. My point is, I haven't really seen a ton of modern Western films. The only two that come to mind are "Django Unchained" and "Cowboys vs. Aliens". The latter being a pretty good movie, if just a little bit flawed.
Now, as for "Dead Man's Burden", I came across this movie on YouTube from a channel called Grjngo. And no, I'm not misspelling that name. That is how it's spelled on their YouTube channel. And Grjngo's channel is, basically, dedicated to showing Western movies. A lot of them I have never heard of, and most of them are classic Westerns. Now, I'm not going to review every single one of them, but there are some that have peeked my interest, so I'll save them for another time. Now, I wanted to find a modern Western that was worth covering for this series, and this was the only one I could find on Grjngo's channel that was worth covering. And the only thing I can tell you about this movie is that it's a Western from 2012. And the plot, from what I could gather, is about two siblings that reunite together after the death of their father, and a mining company wants to buyout their land.
Now that plot may not sound interesting, but I am hoping that the movie will be able to take this basic plot, and work it to it's advantage. But I don't really know if this movie will be any good. The only way I'm gonna find out, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Dead Man's Burden".
14 minutes later
You know, guys, if it were me, personally, I wouldn't invite someone, who is trying to buyout my land, to attend my father's funeral. It just seems kind of fucked up, especially knowing that this guy is still wanting to buy the McCurry's land. I totally understand that it's a trivial thing to be bringing up, but still, it just seems kind of messed up to me.
20 minutes later
Sorry, guys, for not saying a whole right now. I'm just getting sucked into the story. I'm digging it so far, and I hope it continues to stay that way.
15 minutes later
Sure...nobody killed your Pa, except the horse that he was, supposedly, thrown off on. You know, guys, this movie has been really good so far, but this excuse that Martha's been using to try and, possibly, cover up on how her Pa was killed is getting a little bit old.
20 minutes later
Once more, guys, I'm gonna have to apologize for not saying a whole lot, but this story has been so good, that I've been too busy focusing on what's going on with the story and seeing where it goes next. It honesty has been really good, so far.
The Review
Well, guys, that was "Dead Man's Burden". Let me shut the movie off...OK. Oh boy...out of all the ways that this movie could've ended...this was the one ending I was not hoping for. I am a little disappointed by the ending, but I'm not gonna let that ruin this movie for me. Let's talk about "Dead Man's Burden". And the best way to do this is by talking about the writing.
Throughout my lifetime in watching Westerns, one thing that I've noticed in a lot of them is that they, usually, have a much slower paced story. Now, in most cases, I don't mind that. Because, as I made mentioned before, I've grown up watching Westerns as a child. So I'm use to watching them, and not caring that they have a much slower pace when it comes to the writing. Not all of them are like this, of course, but, to me, I notice that in a lot of the Westerns that I grew up watching. Some of it has to do with the runtime. And two big examples I can think of are "Django Unchained", and "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". "Django Unchained", mainly because Quentin Tarantino's movies usually have a habit of almost reaching the 3 hour mark, with the one lone exception being "Death Proof". As with "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly", it really has to do with how that movie was released on DVD and Blu-ray. Now, I want to make a clear mention that I love "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly", and I always will. But when it was released on DVD and Blu-ray, they added in a lot of extra content that really did not enhance the film in any way. Because there were extra scenes in that movie that really went nowhere. Added on to the fact that most of the scenes were dubbed in, and rather poorly, too. And all of those extra scenes almost pushed the film to it's 3 hour mark. And what's funny about it is that you would not notice these extra scenes if you were watching the movie on VHS. Now that, in part, has to do with the limitations set by the standards for VHS's back in the day. But the other reason why that worked better on VHS is because, without the extra scenes, the pacing on that movie was just right. However, with the extra scenes that are on DVD, Blu-ray, and probably the version of it on YouTube, it brings the pacing of that movie down, slightly. Mind you, it doesn't ruin the movie. But as I said, it wasn't really needed, and the movie could've either done without the extra scenes, or leave it as an option in where you can watch the movie with either the original 2 hour and 41 minute version that was on VHS, or watch it with the, almost, 3 hour version.
Now, the reason why I brought up those two examples is because pacing is a rather crucial thing, when it comes to making your movie. And while I will say that "Dead Man's Burden" has some really strong pacing throughout most of it's 92 minute runtime, it does have some moments where the film kinda drags at some points. For example, we have Wade McCurry, one of our main characters, who after getting shot, is slowly crawling towards a cactus. And after we see him biting into one of the pieces of cacti he cut off, the scene immediately cuts to a different scene, and we NEVER get to see what Wade was trying to do after that. It felt like the movie needed to pad itself out so that we could get the movie to go on longer by having a scene, or two, not go anywhere with what it was trying to do. Now, as I was doing the scant bit of research I could find on this movie, I found out that this movie was filmed within 18 days on a limited budget. And I can tell you that it shows, because it really felt like the people who worked on this movie wanted to do more with this thing. However, because of a strict time limit, they weren't able to do more with this movie. Now, I'm not gonna blame the budget, because I have seen a ton of movies, some for this series and on my own time, that had low budgets and were still able to make a pretty good movie. Some of them even great. And this movie is definitely really good, considering what it had to work with. And, as I said, while the movie has some slight pacing issues, it's not enough to where you will get bored by it, unless if you're not into Westerns. But I'll touch a little more on that when I talk about recommendations.
As for the story itself, it is a mostly well written story about two settlers, Martha and Heck, trying to get through life in New Mexico. Martha's relatives, such as most of her brothers, including her mother and father, are all dead in some way, shape, or form. Her brother, Wade McCurry, who was fighting in the Civil War, receives a letter one day, and it's from Martha's father. He comes back home and learns that Martha has been trying to sell her homeland to a mining company, because they just can't make it out here in New Mexico. They, that being Martha and Heck, are trying to start a new life in San Francisco so that they can open their own hotel. And they're hoping that Mr. Lane, who I guess is the head of the mining company, the movie doesn't exactly explain that part, will try and buyout their land for a reasonable price. Now, I may have given it away during the reaction portion where the circumstances of how Martha's father died are uncertain. And the movie decides to play itself as a mystery so that Wade tries to figure out how their father died, while also trying to stop Martha from selling her homeland. And the story is going to keep you engaged as you learn more about the inconsistencies with how Martha's father died and how Wade comes to the conclusion of what really happened to him. Now, this story works because our characters are, mostly, likable, and have a ton of depth. There is one, however, I need to talk about, which would be the character of Heck. And I'm gonna have to give a little bit of a spoiler in order for me to talk about this. So, before Heck ends up killing Mr. Lane, Mr. Lane goes into detail about who Heck really is, and all of the terrible deeds that he's done such as burning Lawrence, Kansas to the ground, or killing women and children, or killing a deputy sheriff of, I believe, Missouri, because he loves violence. And all of that would've been fine, except we're told all of this, but we don't get any kind of flashbacks to where we would see what Mr. Lane was talking about. And all of this backstory comes right out of nowhere, because, for the most part, Heck mostly comes off as just a family man who is trying to help Martha trying to get through everyday life at their home. At least, until we get to a plot point where Heck tries to stop Wade from getting Mr. Lane to a judge, because Wade thinks Mr. Lane was the one who killed his father. And when Heck does show his true colors, it kinda comes across as a bit rushed. Because there's not much of a hint to show Heck as this really bad guy. The only kind of hint we do get is when Wade tells Martha that anyone who carries the sorta gun that Heck carries usually has some sort of story to tell. But that's not really much of a hint, because as I said, when Heck does show he is this bad guy, it comes across as kind of rushed. Now, you could say that because the film only had 18 days to work with, the writers didn't have enough time to properly explain this kind of heel turn. And while that may be true, to an extent, I still think the movie could've handled it a little better, even with the limited time that the movie had.
But barring that, the story here is still really solid...minus the last 20 minutes, or so, where the film slowly kinda fell apart. And that mainly has to do with the sudden heel turn involving Heck. At least, to me, it felt sudden. But even with that, the movie is still really strong, even with the setbacks that this film had. What also makes this movie stand out is the acting. Out of all the movies I watched where it had worked with low budgets, this is, quite possibly, one of the best. The acting is fantastic from everyone. There is nobody here that phoned it in. And even with Heck's sudden heel turn, his actor was still able to turn in a really great showing. I really liked everyone's performances in this movie. And another thing I found out about this movie is that when it was bring written, the writer and director for this movie, which was Jared Moshe, didn't want to use big name actors, because he thought that they didn't belong in that time period. And while I could totally see the logic behind that reasoning, I do think it is sort of flimsy. I say that because, since this movie was filmed with a tight budget, I don't think that they could even afford a big name actor, even if they wanted to. But still, I'll take a flimsy reasoning over nothing. Overall, guys, the acting is amazing, and it really is one of the biggest highlights of this movie.
Our costuming is done perfectly. Everyone feels like they came out of the 1800's, so, of course, you would need to get the right kind of outfits for our cast, so that they would feel like they belonged in this time period. Which, thinking about it now, I guess it does make more sense as to why there are no big name actors in this movie, because I couldn't imagine anyone in particular who would fit in the 1800's. I still think it's because of it's low budget, but I'm not going to dwell on that any longer. There really isn't a whole lot here for special effects, outside of gun wounds, including one moment where Heck is holding the ripped out heart of Mr. Lane. The effect for it looked rather dirty, and I don't mean that because it came from a human body, I mean it looked dirty because there was a ton of dark dirt on it. Which looked rather fake, even for the standards of a low budget film, but I'm not going to harp on that too much. So I can say that special effects are decent here.
Our camerawork is really solid. Lighting is done incredibly well, mainly because, most of this movie was filmed outdoors during the daylight, so it would make sense for the lighting to be mostly solid. I say mostly, because there is one shot that looked rather poor. And it was during the beginning of the movie, where the camera is focusing on a lower angle of Martha reloading her shotgun, and she's standing right behind the sun. So as she's reloading her gun, the sun's glare will pop in about several times during the shot and it does come off as a little bit distracting. Perhaps they could've focused the camera at a different angle, or have the actress stand at a different position, where the sun's glare doesn't become an issue when you're filming your shot. Outside of that, though, the lighting in this movie is great. Our score here is decent. Our sound-mix, however...is actually going to be one of the deciding factors of this movie. You see, when I started watching the movie, I could barely hear the dialogue from our characters. So much so, that I had to turn on the captions, just so I can read what the characters were saying, because there are moments where the dialogue sounded quiet, so I had to replay some parts of it with the captions turned on. Now, I don't know if it was a technical issue on my end, or if it was the version I watched on YouTube. Either way, at some points, I could barely hear what the characters were saying. In fact, even with the captions turned on, there some moments where the subtitles will translate certain bits of dialogue as inaudible. Again, I don't know why that is. Mind you, it doesn't ruin the movie, because it does read out what the characters are saying throughout most of the movie. However, there are some moments where certain lines of dialogue will read out as inaudible, and it also comes off as rather noticeable. So I do have to warn you there that if you're going to watch this movie, I would, personally, recommend watching it with the captions on. But that's just me. And admittedly, I was able to hear more of the character's dialogue as the movie continued on. But just for the hell of it, I kept the captions on, just in case those problems popped up.
Overall, guys, am I able to recommend "Dead Man's Burden"? Yes, provided you are into Westerns, and you're able to look over some of the schizophrenic dialogue, if you watch this movie with the captions on. This movie is really good. Mind you, this is not going to rank up as one of the best Westerns I've ever seen. Hell no. It's never going to reach those standards. But it's still certainly a really fascinating movie. Again, provided if you're into Westerns. If you're not a fan of Westerns, then there's no way I could recommend this movie. However, if you do want to watch this thing, it is on YouTube, so you can go right ahead and watch it without having to buy the movie on DVD. And if you really enjoy it, you could wind up buying this thing on DVD somewhere. I'm not totally sure if it's something I would buy on DVD myself, but I did enjoy watching this thing once, and that's always a positive. And now, I'm in the mood to watch another Western. I'm looking over my DVD shelf and I see my copy of "El Dorado". I'm gonna go watch that, because it's been a little while since I last watched it.
Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all in the near future. Peace.
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