Well, after reading so much about this notorious Michael Cimino film, including much info on its nightmarish production and reviews on how wretched it is, I finally decided to give the DVD a rental.
First, a breif synopsis. Kris Kristofferson stars as a sheriff in 1890’s Wyoming who discovers a secret plot on the part of the local millionaire cattle ranchers to hunt down and murder some pesky European immigrants who’ve been squatting on their land and stealing their cattle. It just so happens that his girlfriend, a French immigrant bordello madam, is one of people marked for death because she accepts stolen cattle as payment from the immigrants. So of course he wants her to leave town before the shit goes down. But, alas, she is also dating a friend of his, who just happens to be an assassin played by Christopher Walken who works for the cattle barons…
No doubt, this movie is HUGE. The sheer scale of some scenes defies description…there are scenes set at a Harvard graduation that feature thousands of extras dancing almost in sync, followed up by gigantic street scenes in a Wyoming railroad town, people bustling everywhere, wagons and carriages speeding by, trains running in the far background, etc. It’s the kind of stuff you will never see again in these CGI-happy days.
And certain parts of the movie are beautiful and amazing. There is a massive sequence featuring the European immigrants roller-skating to a folk band, followed by a virtuoso dance between Kristofferson and his girlfriend…and also quieter romantic scenes that are surprising in the naturalism and lack of phony Hollywood emoting.
BUT THE MOVIE HAS NO GOD DAMN STORY.
Well, there is a story there, but it’s buried underneath endless footage of people doing absolutely NOTHING. There’s a whole five or six minute sequence of Walken showing the French madam his new place, and they don’t talk, or even look at each other, but just stand in the middle of the room staring at the floor…then they make eye contact, smile, and that’s the end of the scene.
This is a 90 minute movie dragged out to 3 hours and 39 minutes.
And the sheer stupidity and annoyance of those “heroic” immigrants will just about make you sick. The aforementioned roller skating scene was cool, but for the rest of the movie, they all stand around dramatically clutching their heads like silent movie actors and BABBLING, CRYING, and SCREAMING at each other almost non-stop in Polish, Russian, German, Serbian, and god knows what else. You know from their desperate faces and wide eyes that they’re saying something important, but no matter, because THERE ARE NO SUBTITLES for any of it.
Sam Waterson is the villian of the piece, and seems to be imitating a English butler with a severe sexual orientation issue. Jeff Bridges walks around unshaven and top-hatted, has nothing to offer to the story, and generally looks like a wino. The usually excellent Christopher Walken doesn’t have one good line in the film and is fitted with a lame mustache that looks like something a 8th grader would be cultivating.
Make no mistake…this is one of the most beautifully shot and yet most inane and misbegotten movies ever made.
I literally DARE anyone to watch it.