The Night They Came Home

One of many micro budget films with a washed up star plastered on the poster, The Night They Came Home pretends to retell the story of the real life Rufus Buck gang.

But instead of a western biopic, what we get are endless musings about race and white-man-bad. The writers did put some nuance into the dialogue though, and it's not as stupidly on the nose as a Disney production or something of the sort.

There are some moments of genuine tension (when they come across a man and his son who they hold an impromptu trial for), and some moments of nuance. After giving a long speech about the injustice of racism to a reporter, once the reporter is gone, the gang breaks out in laughter at the idea of the reporter having bought that cock and bull story.

It is a testament to the actors portraying the gang members, that the ridiculous writing can be brought to the screen at all.

Charlie Townsend as Rufus Buck has genuine talent and will hopefully receive better material in the future.

Production value is nonexistent here, color grading is awful for the most part, and the cheap digital look can make even nice landscapes look terrible. I get better looking shots on my Iphone.

The music is stock music quality as expected.

Danny Trejo has a glorified cameo as narrator so they could put him on the poster, but his scenes just suck the air out of what little narrative there is.

Overall it's quite terrible, but there's talent among the cast.

As an avid fan of Westerns and always looking under that rock for the next great story-regardless of budget, i.e. "Bone Tomahawk"-I tried to give this one a chance. This one absolutely sucked from the first scene on; and kept getting worse. I stuck it out, but it's nearly two hours I will never get back. The dialogue was preachy and dumb. The camera work was erratic and novice, oftentimes looking like it was filmed on a iPhone. I'm amazed that shows like this make it beyond the pitch to production. This movie was absolutely horrible in every measurable way. I would rather take up crochet or eat a warm bucket of hamster vomit than sit through this hot mess of a feeble attempt at cinema.

First of all, you can tell right away this is a low budget B movie by the cheap fake looking costumes. You may not realize it after seeing Danny Trejo on the cast and trailer, but remember so is Nicholas Cage in many lame movies.

Then there is the script. It is non-stop guilt tripping about the evil white man. At first you kinda think, well sure it is that time and place, and there is some of that I get it. Then after like 30-40 mins, you realize it is nonstop. Every few minutes, it just keeps bringing it up, every little situation, every dialog, just keep repeating the same political points.

People watch movies to be entertained, not to be lectured. And I'm not even white.

1/10.

Worst piece of garbage of social justice, of weakly written, poorly conceived, and stink up junk to waste film on. The costumer should be fired. The prop person should be fired. The writer should be fired. The director should be fired.

A low budget film can happen. Case in point: Bone Tomahawk. Obviously that movie was made on a dime. Some of the costumes were meh, but at least the dialogue sparkled with a sort of authenticity.

As an actor it must be torture to recite lines that are so poorly written, so full of anachronistic language.

About the only good thing in this flick was the gang's demise.

I never walked out of a movie until "The Night They Came Home". I'm not sure if it was the acting or the script that was worse, but both are horrible. The beginning starts with a narrator and she builds up what sounds to be a really good story, then it comes across the screen " A True Story". Now I love movies that are based on true events, but whereever or whomever this true story came from was not a storyteller or it was transcribed badly. Whoever wrote the screenplay for this movie has either never written a screenplay before or is not a writer by trade.

Run, don't walk away from this steaming pile of excrement.