This is the worst movie I've ever seen in my life. This film is similar to the highway men in that it's about the people who killed a pair of famous criminals except with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid. But where that movie had the typical quality of a Kevin Costner film, this one has the quality of a film like birdemic, straight to the DVD bin at Walmart with a poster that looks far more exciting than the actual video. I miss the days of originality in movies, when everything wasn't a sequel or attached to a better film, I thought we'd get that this year judging by how well 2023 went but instead we got the hunt for the wild bunch, there's already a far superior film called the wild bunch, watch that instead. From the opening seconds I could already tell this would be a terrible movie, a 5 second flashback starts the movie, all it establishes is that the main character is a sheriff, not if he's a competent one or any characteristics beyond that, if you want to establish that do it in dialogue, that's another one of hunt for the wild bunch's failures, dialogue, or should I call it exposition. Every sentence uttered in this abomination against cinema only serves to move the plot along, to even suggest that these are people speaking words is laughable, it's more likely that it's a robot or ai telling people what they must do next, instead of telling us that the sheriff knows the mountains, have him be in some difficult to navigate spot and exit flawlessly, would that be accurate to something he experienced, I don't know, and frankly I don't care, maybe that could be how he becomes sheriff, he does a rescue mission of someone who's stranded in the mountains, that way you get an extra set piece, you establish that the main character knows the mountains, and you make the audience care about him because if his selflessness. Speaking of set pieces, don't even get me started on the main action scene of the movie, I could make an entire documentary about how bad this scene is, it would be more entertaining than hunt for the wild bunch. Instead I'll simply point out 3 issues, the way it starts is terrible, there's no buildup or anything, no sudden impact, it dissolves into the shootout, it lacks any punch or suspense or Suprise, I feel nothing, you need to have that buildup, especially in a western film where the most iconic scenes of the genre are entirely constructed on suspense, think back to the gun duels of Sergio Leone, it's the aiming of the gun where you're most on edge, the ticking of a bomb that inspires stress before it erupts into a flurry of violence. But even without the suspense it could work, have it be abrupt, smash cut to the gunfire instead of dissolving into it like any other scene. This would feel like an adrenaline shot instead of a conversation. But who are the heroes shooting at? The opposition have no presence, it's like they're shooting at nothing, it's more entertaining as watching a group of old men having a schizophrenic attack and shooting at nothing, it's unclear that it even is different people due to how similar their outfits are, it draws attention to how forgettable each of these characters are that they blend in, you fix this by making their outfits distinct, and having back and forth shots of them shooting at each other, this way you can tell who is shooting at who, otherwise it looks like a bunch of old men hallucinating. And the sound design, gunfire is loud, they got that right, but the echo, the effect it has on the environment, it isn't present, it's just a loud crack every time someone pulls a trigger, not the decision to potentially end someone's life being made. And the way it comes to a halt is baffling, instead of showing the bandits climbing down the rock they simply have Nathan Bowser exposit information, it's the first thing anyone learns in any storytelling class, SHOW DON'T TELL, it's the easiest thing to do, show us the rope they used to climb down the cliff and maybe have the actors do the last small bit, or have them disappear behind the ledge, could you imagine if you were watching an action film and tom cruise is riding his bike up to a cliff, and it cut to Simon Pegg looking at his iPad as he exposits that Tom jumped off the cliff, maybe it's a good thing they didn't have that extra set piece in. It isn't exciting in the slightest. Then the people who have the highest billing find the people who are supposed to be the bad guys because someone saw some gang members somewhere else, they win due to luck, the plot resolution is "the bad guys are over there!" the end. This film is 13 minutes you won't be able to get back, the director strikes me as someone similar to James Nyguen, director of Birdemic shock and terror, someone who believes they are an artist, who lectures people on how films should be made, but knows nothing about this craft or storytelling in general. I recommend you all to avoid this film at all costs, watch a decent western film like stagecoach or man of the west or the good the bad and the ugly.
