A Tale of Two Guns

I watched this Western while suffering from pseudo-COVID (y'know, you have all the symptoms but the tests show negative), so the oddly muted gunfire sounds were kind on my headache-infested skull. As some of the action scenes were also in slo-mo, I linked the softened bullet noises to the filmmakers attempting to imitate life going slower and softer in a stress situation. May be wrong, just my take.

Some dialogue was good, some was flowery, and some just superfluous. Quite liked any dialogue from the stoic Gunslinger, Artemis Hollinger (Ed Morrone). Direct, judicial use of words that offered just the right level of explanation. I found the costumes and make-up jarring for people living in a hot dust bowl. No sweat-stained shirts, dust and horse hair matted pants, hats that have seen better days or limp, discoloured bandanas. It was all stiff spotless shirts and dresses, shiny hats, whitest of white aprons and patterned vests and bandanas. Repeat shots of perfect American white chompers, women sporting contemporary eyeshadow, and lots of clean styled head and facial hair conspired to crack the illusion I was watching a Western set in the US Civil War era.

Mainly watched to see Tom Berenger again, who can forget his iconic portrayal of Sgt. Barnes in Platoon?

Poor make-up, poor sound quality, poor Foley artistry. The sound effects were inconsistent, the make up was like cheap Halloween make-up, and the sound was all over the place. I've seen worse, but it's been a while. I'm guessing the budget was really low or poorly spent.

I'm all in for hiring handicapped people but it doesn't work having dead sound effects team. I was so annoyed by the muffled cannon shots where any other movie maker would have had real rifle and gun shots recorded instead. I can't tell you what the last hour and eleven minutes were like because I found something else to watch instead. Maybe if the whole thing was worth watching I would have more than six hundred characters. Your review process is worse than the movie. Maybe if the whole thing was worth watching I would have more than six hundred characters. Your review process is worse than the movie.

The production is terrible. The sound is so bad.... The gun shots sound really fake like muffled cannons, all the background sound is laughable, with extra wind noise, muffled sound one minute, one minute nothing at all. I'm not sure the horses moving ever sounds right. The story is good, and Tom Berenger is ok. Everything else is just bad.... Characters even die in funny ways.

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch the 2022 Western movie "A Tale of Two Guns" from writer and director Justin Lee here in 2022. And seeing that there were indeed a handful of good actors on the cast list, of course I sat down to watch it.

However, it was obvious pretty early on in the movie that this was not really a top notch production. How so? Well, from the very first gun fight, which actually starts off the movie, you have a feeling of it being an amateurish production actually, especially in terms of cinematography and the sounds. I've never sat through a movie with guns of any kind where the gunshots sounded so pathetic as they did in "A Tale of Two Guns".

The storyline in "A Tale of Two Guns" was actually fair enough. It wasn't the most riveting and compelling of storylines, but it was sufficient enough for a single viewing.

The movie does have a good cast ensemble, with the likes of Tom Berenger, Casper Van Dien, Ed Morrone, Judd Nelson, Jeff Fahey, Griff Furst, Jake Busey and Danny Trejo among those listed. However, most of these were just in the movie for a moment or two. And the audience are treated to Casper Van Dien and Ed Morrone for the majority of the movie.

I don't understand why they opted to show the gunfight scenes in slow motion. It didn't really add any excitement to the scenes. If anything, it just served as a nuissance, especially when laced with those god awful pathetic sounds for the guns.

All in all, "A Tale of Two Guns" was watchable for a single viewing, and that was about it. This was by no means a milestone in the Western genre. Nor is it a movie that brought anything new to the genre.

My rating of writer and director Justin Lee's 2022 Western "A Tale of Two Guns" lands on a four out of ten stars.