Homestead

This movie starts off well enough, it looks good and while the dialogue is iffy (as it remains throughout the movie), it clearly establishes the main characters. Once a new character enters shortly after, there's actually a great deal of tension. Then DDP shows up and it all goes limp, slumping to the floor and never getting back up.

The synopsis and setup make you think this little girl is going to be a total badass and save her family. Sligh's acting was so good that I was actually becoming invested and looking forward to see her become that hero. But she is totally wasted and the story suddenly becomes ill-paced, generic, and predictable. The tension dies as the movie slowly and weirdly shifts antagonist motive, gives us action that is unimaginative and either happening offscreen or onscreen with terrible special effects, and becomes increasingly clear with us that we're not getting the David vs Goliaths battle we were waiting for. The character is actually given a disappointingly small amount to do. And that's too bad because the actress was ready to give us something special. The writing really let her down and the movie ultimately lets us all down. Bottom line, watch "Becky" instead.

Beware of any film that sets to improve on a very well defined genre.

Westerns have given us some real masterpieces, films that stand out in the long list of great american films.

It's really too bad when a director feels he can improve on the style by showing his own talent and aiming much too high.

Here we have a situation that has been treated many times, a group of people, in this case a family, trapped in a house in the middle of nowhere under siege from a group of particularly mean killers.

What could have been the twist is that the person who will fight back is the one you'd least expect : a litttle girl.

Only every move every line of dialog take ages, it's so long and boring that it kills all tension, you just wish they would get along with the story and move on.

The director wants you to see how clever and intelligent he is and to do this he really takes his time. Long shots on people who don't say anything, meaningful looks that lead nowhere....

Had he played the story and directed his film more humbly he might have had a really good film to show.

This is not the case.

Special mention to the cast and particularly the little girl, but it's not enough.

This is not a movie. It's the first episode of a TV show. DO NOT waste your money going to see this. I wouldn't watch this even on a free service like Pluto TV.

The storyline started out interesting but at every turn it went the wrong direction. The dialogue and acting are also terrible.

There were audience members that left half way through the show. It's absolutely terrible. I've never said anything like this before about a movie. I seriously want my money back.

And at the end they ask you to scan a QR code to buy someone else a ticket. The only way I'd scan that QR code is for a refund. Hollywood just scammed me.

Right, well without ever having heard about this 2023 Western titled "Homestead", I opted to sit down and watch it, as I had the opportunity to do so. I must admit that the movie's synopsis sounded interesting enough.

However, writer and director Ehrland Hollingsworth delivered a very bland and generic Western, one that was without much of any thrills, excitement or even a thoroughly thought through storyline. The narrative in "Homestead" was so simplistic that you could leave the movie for a long time and come back and still be up to speed with the events in the narrative. It was that bland, slow paced and monotonous.

The cast in the movie was fair enough. I mean, you're not in for any grand award-winning performances, and the only familiar face was Brian Krause. But given the severe limitations imposed upon them by an inferior script, then the actors and actresses faired well enough.

"Homestead" looked like a Western movie, but just lacked a drive and a proper storyline, and that made sitting through 79 minutes of this movie quite the ordeal. I doubt that even the most hardcore of Western fans will get much of a buzz out of watching writer and director Ehrland Hollingsworth's 2023 movie "Homestead".

The movie's cover had the movie set up for way more than what writer and director Ehrland Hollingsworth could manage to deliver. In fact, the movie's cover was actually the best part about the entire ordeal, sadly so.

My rating of "Homestead" lands on a three out of ten stars.

Having a guilty pleasure for what read as the "darker" element of the genre, checked it out.

The cinematography just brought back the 70s westerns that I grew up watching almost immediately, so settled in. Like most westerns, the antagonist is usual prevalent in the onset. Solid enough acting on all fronts, but what felt like it might head in the direction of interest...it plods along with very limited content, and even more limited expansiveness. Even the scenery, which can elevate these films, fell flat.

It's basically a broken family, a cabin, and some bad dudes out for revenge. That's it. Where some take this next level, the more recent (and pretty excellent) "Old Henry" excelled in bringing forth that classic feel...The Homestead just spins it's tires for the better part of an hour filled with unspectacular series of missed opportunities. I found it reminded me of a made for television (are these still a thing?) film. Very short, very uneventful, short on captivating violence that comes with even the most modern of the genre, and certainly mislabeled along the way as "horror", which confused me about the half way point, as the violence was pretty tame throughout. I can handle crossover appeal with the implied supernatural elements entwined with western films (High Plains Drifter) and horror element (Bone Tomahawk), this was more comparable to a Little House on the Prarie reinterpretation.

What comes is a very predictably boring run into the third act and an anticlimatic finish. Nothing stood out as anything more than mediocrity and a dud of a film.