End of the Rope

The last 20 seconds of the ending film credits tells it all, it is a work of fiction. Sadly, I was really looking forward to this film, as I read the book, but I was really disappointed for many reasons. Both sides of my family for 3 generations lived in the Watford City, ND area, and many generations of both sides of my family are buried in the Schafer Cemetery. I grew-up hearing about the brutal Bannon crimes committed on the Haven family farm, who are also buried in the Schafer Cemetery. The film is entirely too long and slow. The invented fire backstory was fiction, and only made Bannon seem sympathetic, which historically he was not! Charles Bannon, by my relatives firsthand accounts, was a greedy, ruthless murderer of men, women, and children. The code of silence from the lynching in and around Schafer and Watford City, North Dakota persists until today, almost 93 years later. My grandfather showed me photos of Bannon in a Watford City museum when I was young, and he appeared to be the embodiment of evil. Conversely, the actor in this film looked like an alter boy. This film was a REAL missed opportunity to tell a truly tragic history, and while laws were broken, justice prevailed. Hopefully, someday, there will be a more historically accurate and chilling 'reboot' of this film and story.

Direction, character design, and overall performances were solid.

The villain stood out with a commendable performance, and I genuinely wished the film had placed greater emphasis on his role especially his dialogue and confrontation scenes with the protagonist.

The direction, music, and visual design were also strong, and the plot itself felt grounded and believable.

However, the film lacked soul and emotional depth from the supporting cast. It also suffered from a lack of dynamic secondary characters that could have added variety and complexity.

Ultimately, I feel disappointed, as this was a missed opportunity to create something truly exceptional, given how many strong elements were already in place.

What could've been a decent movie based on a true event was just a torturous watch, I don't know if my ears will recover. I should've turned it off but, a true story always gets me. Especially since it was "western" type. While the acting, story, set, etc. Was decent, the sound (music) was way overdone and too loud. While I appreciate a good soundtrack & score, this was just the pits. Score was decent, volume was extremely overbearing. Mumbling actors, low volume voices, and a score that covered it all up. Too bad subtitles weren't available. The buildup in the beginning was stretched beyond its need to get to the point of the sullen, despaired sheriff. Any scene meant to draw out emotion, empathy or feeling for the characters/situation was for naught due to the loudness of the music. Whoever did the audio should be ashamed and probably needs to find a new career. Whoever made this movie can thank the audio team for ruining your movie.

Only watch it you have subtitles available and can tune a decent score down unfortunately.

I can't get over all the movies lately where the music is so loud. This movie the music is louder than the people talking as though it's some kind of musical and the dialogue isn't important! It's a historical account, can the music already! I read the information about the movie on Wikipedia. I was really hoping to get an accurate depiction of the course of events. Once again, though, the music is too loud! Why do the movies always have to do that? I would have given this movie a better review except for that major distraction. It's quite sad about this history of this town and how tempers flare.

If you are willing to overlook the 'Cellphone Camera' cinematography and the some what harsh lighting and editing, this film does stand tall in script, the Actors give both an honest and respectful truth to the disturbingly real life event script with a dialog that stands out as actually human, rather than the cut and paste dross one has come to expect over the past decade of paint by numbers Hollywood ... sadly I doubt this film will ever get the 'box office' respect it deserves in terms of effort made as there are no Marvel Superheros in the real world, only true tales seasoned by the likes of Truman Capote, Cormac McCarthy and as it now seems, Daniel Bielinski and Co.