Dead for a Dollar

The latest from action miestro Walter Hill, Dead For a Dollar is a simple, spare, small-cast, south-of-the-border Western dedicated to Budd Boetticher. While this is the type of morality tale the legendary Boetticher would be drawn to, he'd probably hate the way this movie looks as much as I do. Cinematographer Lloyd Ahern II has shot many films for Hill, including the westerns Broken Trail (2006) and Wild Bill (1995), but the sepia-monochrome look of this digitally photographed picture says "Old West" about as much as a snowglobe evokes "Swiss Alps." There are a lot of horses and guns and dust in these frames, but they're devoid of any texture. Hill frames too much in either extreme close-ups or long telephoto distance shots, so there's no sense of geography. And these shots feel like they've been edited by an algorithm. Indeed everything about this picture looks cheap (which is maybe intentional?) and feels like it was made by a rookie rather than a five-decade veteran whose seen more than his share of action (which can't be deliberate).

All the visual faults do nothing for the performances, which come off equally undercooked. Christoph Waltz gives his most flat characterisation as bounty hunter with a conscious Max Borlund. You'd think it would be a nice change of pace to see Waltz underplaying a role for a change; but instead, he just feels too bland to be a protagonist. Borlund is hired by a dishonourable businessman (Hamish Linklater) to travel to Mexico and rescue his wife (Rachel Brosnahan) whose been abducted by a deserting buffalo soldier (Brandon Scott). But has the wife really been taken against her will? Brosnahan (known most for the TV series The Marvelous Mrs Maisel), Scott and Linklater (also known for their TV work) are all fine but forgettable. And we don't go to westerns to see forgettable performances (not in today's cinematic era nor in Budd Boetticher's). The only actor allowed to do anything more than sit on a horse, shoot a gun, and gaze into another actor's eyes with steely determination is the always reliable Willem Dafoe as an unscrupulous cattle rustler and an honest gambler. Dafoe keeps the picture alive when he's on screen, but he seems an unimportant sidebar to the narrative. A disappointment for those of us who are always on the lookout for a good western.

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