Red Dead Redemption: The Man from Blackwater

I have absolutely no experience of the computer game this short film is based upon . I might have seen the occasional television advert but that's all my personal experience of RED DEAD REDEMPTION is confined to . I did go out of my way to watch it simply because the director is John Hillcoat whose work I've always been impressed with . GHOSTS OF THE CIVIL DEAD is a contender for best prison movie ever made and definitely the most depressing . THE PROPOSITION is a different and unusual take on the Western . THE ROAD was disgracefully overlooked at the big award ceremonies in the categories of cinematography and Viggo Mortensen's performance . LAWLESS was a disappointment and showed signs of a Hollywood studio interfering in commercial need . In short Hillcoat is an undervalued director whose films revolve around mood and the misanthropic nature of Mankind and I was interested in what he could do with a CG short film

Perhaps I should have bought the game or at the very least read up on what RED DEAD REDEMPTION is all about . I can understand the basic idea behind it of a former criminal turned bounty hunter riding in to town and looking for a former associate who is now a wanted man . The problem is the story becomes diverted by little episodic things like bandits carrying out a massacre or other things that give the impression they might become important later on if you buy the game such as the bounty hunter coming across a woman of faith in the desert which gives everything a disjointed nature from a narrative view point . There's also the problem that when things look good on paper and at a story board level such as a shoot out you find yourself wishing this had taken place as live action rather than CG . As it stands put me down as one of the other people on this page slightly disappointed at what we were given here

This short film interested me some time ago when I heard about it while looking for the video game of the same name and eventually I decided to watch it. Upon watching I learn that this is a 30-minute film sort of made backwards because they have taken cut sequences and shots from within the first section of the game and put them together to be a cinematic telling of the story. The end result is a rather odd experience because the plot is not particularly great when you play it straight through like this; it works well in the game where you can get involved, do small things around it and get drawn in by the game play, but to sit back and watch passively, not so much.

The fact that the material in this film works better in the game leads to another problem when you think about who is watching this film because frankly it is fans of the game who have played it (such as myself) or those so excited to get the game that they are watching everything they can get while they wait for it to arrive in the post (in which case they will soon see these sequences in their better manifestation within the game. So, if you target audience is going to find the film unnecessary then you have to wonder what the point of it actually is? This is a problem that this film never gets over because although it is technically well put together, it is essentially me watching cutscenes that were a lot more fun to be directly involved with the first time I saw them rather than sitting like a film now.

As a promo for the game, Man from Blackwater also falls down because it is too long to be an advert or promo product and the cutscenes are generally a bit slow and talky, maybe not showing the best aspects of actually playing RDR itself. That said, the film's weaknesses do remind me how well the game did the same thing so in a roundabout way I guess it promotes the game, which I guess is ultimately the point.

Some people were a bit disappointed after watching this half hour short from director John Hillcoat. I do not agree with them. It's necessary to understand that it's actually very difficult to craft a movie from game-play and cut-scenes taken out of a game. As Hillcoat himself stated; It's the opposite of doing film. You have to work with material that already exists, in stead of creating it. You're placing cameras and start filming. However you can't give directions to the actors cause it's all been programmed. You're just recording events and try to show what's relevant.

I thought the movie was OK and it invited me to buy the game. It is not epic but it does it's trick. It introduces us to the world of John Marston. Rockstar (the game's developer) has always been very good at telling stories and Red dead Redemption is no exception.

I hope there will be similar projects in the future. Merging movies and games might be the next big thing!