The Only Good Indian

I had the dubious pleasure of catching this title at the Santa Fe Film festival.

I'm baffled as to how this has a 7.5 rating. I wasn't going to say anything until I heard this won "best picture" at the festival.

This movie is essentially a native American / first American revenge story; its didactic goals are to remind us of the atrocities committed against the Indians by the federal government and people working under its tacit permission and to re-figure the typical "wild west" narrative into something that actually does justice to the story of Native Americans. This is accomplished by a kind of "modernization" of the plot setting: The protagonist, Sam (played by Wes Studi) is a roving bounty hunter who captures Indian runaways from a nearby Indian School. This movie has some heavy political undertone. I grew up near "Indian School" road without the slightest notion of what the name of the road was derived from. This movie's job, then is to make a kind of "Indian Drama" in the story of the escapees of the school, their interactions with Sam, and their ultimate destiny. But also, it is there to portray the horrors that Indians faced in early-20th century America, horrors that are too often missing from Americans' self-knowledge.

These two drives end up pulling the film apart. But all of the above was written as if the movie above actually had any idea what they were trying to say with the film. It's running length (114 minutes) is ridiculous for a film of this subject and budget, the acting abysmal, the story banal.

James Boyd is certainly right in many of the things he says about this movie but this is definitely a movie to watch and not avoid.

We all know about cowboys and Indians from westerns. This is a western with a difference, the story obviously focuses on the young Indian boy and the bounty hunter character called Sam Franklin who also happens to be a native Indian himself.

The film does well to analyse the rights and wrongs of our actions in defending something which is clearly fundamentally wrong but the law permits it. As has been said, the early 1900s depicts a sign of the changing times, just as similarly depicted in 'Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee', another native Indian theme movie which I particularly liked.

Okay its not a great movie and it wont win any major awards but it tells the story it intends to tell and it brings to our attention a number of issues at political area about the treatment of native Indians which it seems the American government has not (and perhaps will never) addressed.

I liked the movie, the acting is acceptable to the quality of the script. Just enjoy the movie!

GREAT movie. Well done, and though names are fictitious, there is the awful truth in the events.

How can it be that we have not recognized the error of our actions, and made some restitution? The black Americans are calling for restitution for the slavery of their ancestors, have we not done worse by the Indians?

Those of us who live near Indian reservations, can on a daily basis, the plight of the Indians, who are still, in this day and age, treated with scorn and distaste.

Why, when our neighbor to the north, has recognized the injustice in the removal of children from their families, and made restitution, and formally apologized for their actions, can we do less.

Sam a Cherokee Indian has the world by the balls, he has everything all figured out. He's got his own Detective Agency, which is about to be bought up by Pinkerton Security agency and they're about to make him an agent. With his fancy clothes and motorbike he's spinning his wheels tracking down squaws that escape from the assimilation schools. He tells this to Charlie after he captures him. calling him a red-n-word, and how proud he is that he shrugged off his Native American trappings. Charlie tells them about another run-away Indian who's wanted for double murder. Now SAM isn't new to racism and seems to deal with the anti-Indian sentiment around town, in fact he profits off of it. On their tale is another bounty hunter McCOY the local Sheriff who isn't shown that much respect either. McCOY is world renown Indian killer and heroine addict. He reveals Sam's past telling him "Half the Indians I get credit for, were killed by you". Sam who is running from his passed is forced to face it.

In The Only Good Indian we peek at this particular fragment of US (and Canadian) history from First Nations point of view, and follow a tale which is just a part of the voluminous story of how Impostor Americans took place of Real Americans, after committing genocide, unprecedented in human history - Europeans exterminated possibly up to 80 million (some estimate even up to 100 million) of indigenous Americans (Real American), from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, since 1492. Plot is set in US, sometime in late 19th century or early 1900's, which makes it even harder to swallow, although with the amount and level of racism, exceptionalism, Islamophobia, and all kinds of chauvinism and discriminations in Americas today, especially in US, this statement might be redundant or dubious, maybe even unnecessary. On the other hand reaction of certain individuals here and elsewhere, placed as reviews and/or comments, are truly appalling, no mater how predictable and expected. Bottom line, the film taking point of view which is rare in American cinematography - invisible people's point of view, which shed light on inconvenient history and criminal past.