Counting Bullets

The landscape was rugged, beautiful, and made a perfect background for the men who struggled for their lives.

Really enjoyed this movie. The word appealing seems to capture all that is true about this movie. The characters seemed real, so I cared about them and what happened to them. The story kept me interested and anxious for more.

Four fake reviews contributed by the movie makers relatives, colleagues or friends, tried to cheat people to pick out this terrible western genre garbage from the DVD garbage bin in a supermarket renting machine. Watchable, at least? If you were in jail and there's only one movie that was shown in the public roaming area, and you've got nowhere to go, then watch it.

What amazed me as a myth is why so many moronic investors would waste their money to so many horrible movies? Many production budgets were over several millions and even more, but their global box office records only shown couple of thousand dollars, sometimes, even in the 5 figure range. Why not used that money to invest in other ventures instead of making movies?

I picked this film up on DVD at Walmart for like 10 bucks. I thought it looked like a fun B-western. Apparently this production company somehow managed to make 12 westerns-one a month-during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic. That is impressive even if the films all ended up as incoherent messes and/or complete garbage.

This is the only one I have seen but the film was good enough that I am interested in checking out the rest of the films. The production values are solidly shoestring budget and the acting is pretty amateurish; I think that adds to the charm of the film but you have to love Z-grade productions to get passed that.

But the direction and especially the script are surprisingly good. The shootouts and action build correctly to be tense. The story-even if it well-worn Cavalry and Indian story-does engage and the script is competent at set-up, payoff. The characters are thinly drawn and tropes but their characterizations work and they fit together well as cast of characters. This was a fun find. No one will think this is a great film or breaking new ground but it is an entertaining film made under extreme conditions. It is worth seeing just because of the production context.

I'm not a relative nor was I paid to leave a "good" review. I am someone who understands this particular genre and style of movie making. It's not a multi-million dollar production. It was meant to be the product of artists working with a limited budget and it works in that perspective.

The acting is good (great in some parts) and not so good in others but always worth watching. The scenes of the trapped cavalry and the desperate situation they were in was well staged, well acted and the shots were well directed.

If you want Big Jake or Stagecoach, go see them. I enjoy these movies for what they are. Many, like this one, are a collaboration of artists working together to make something worth watching.