Summer Love

I had never heard of Dead Man's Bounty when I saw it at the DVD store a few weeks ago, and I thought I had stumbled upon an unrecognized gem, since it had Val Kilmer in it in a truly unique role. Sadly, it wasn't more than ten or fifteen minutes into the movie that I realized that this is a disaster of epic proportions. The first clue you will see of how genuinely awful this movie is comes near the beginning, when you have a bunch of dirtbags in an old saloon laughing like a bunch of hyenas in a scene that goes on about five times too long. It's unbelievable how bad it is. And sadly, it doesn't get any better.

Val Kilmer is featured prominently on the movie's cover box, maybe to trick you into thinking that he has a role in the film, but unfortunately his bizarre role as a dead man is overlooked in favor of focusing on a bunch of half-wit crooks and the most inept conceptualization of a unique town sheriff that I've ever seen in a movie. He's played by Boguslaw Linda, who is unable to or uninterested in covering his Polish accent, immediately making it impossible that the movie is meant to take place in the American old west.

Does Poland have this type of frontier past? I don't know. My knowledge of Polish history is not my strong point, but I can tell you this, The Sheriff, as he is known in the movie, is the worst representation of law enforcement that I can ever remember seeing in a movie. He is introduced in a truly ridiculous scene where he is wearing some kind of blindfold and a roomful of men take turns punching him in the face. Before they start hitting him, he explains that they can each hit him once, and then, after the first round, they will each hit him again, and if he can identify who is throwing the punches, they lose. What the hell is this crap? I am completely at a loss to explain why a scene like this would ever be put into any movie.

Throughout the movie, the Sheriff continues to appear more and more beaten and bruised and drunk and battered, until ultimately he does nothing but show up occasionally, stumbling on screen and mumbling "not…without...the law…" You see, there is a lot of talk and preparation for a hanging, the details of which are as meaningless as the rest of the movie.

It takes place, by the way, in a town that consists of nothing more than two ramshackle wooden buildings facing each other across a flattened bit of dirt that is more of a path than a road. My understanding is that it is a part of Poland that is supposed to look acceptably enough like the American southwest, where none of the characters, except maybe the dead guy, could possibly have come from.

I have heard that Val Kilmer accepted the role because he was intrigued by his unique role, and also by director Uklanski's minimal use of dialogue in favor of a reliance on cleverly timed juxtaposition of images in unique visual montages.

Yeah, whatever.

Seems to me that Kilimer was unable to overcome what must have been the truly satisfying feeling that he must have gotten when he was offered the role. Personally, I would really feel that I had reached quite some level of success if someone approached me and offered me probably a few hundred thousand dollars to come and lay still for a while. I like to think that he didn't even read the script for this mess, because if he did I am at a total loss to understand why he accepted the role.

At any rate, the movie opens with a man bringing in the corpse of a man, played by Kilmer, seeking the reward. Soon he finds himself embroiled in a ludicrous love story involving the town prostitute, the alcoholic Sheriff, and lots of mayhem involving a series of stupid, stupid characters.

There is also a extensive and preposterous lack of understanding of American rituals. In one scene, a man cuts a cherry tomato in half and squishes the halves into Kilmer's eyes (for what reason, I can't imagine), and then later, a man makes a short speech over Kilmer's corpse, in which he explains that he was "one of the finest men we ever had," and then he proceeds to lop his head off with a shovel. What the HELL??

Not convinced yet? Here are some more reasons not to watch it. In one scene the Sheriff appears to be covered with ash, except for the perfectly clean areas around his eyes and what can only possibly be described as bright red lipstick. A man gets a head wound that drenches his head and body in blood. In a daze, he cauterizes it with gunpowder. Smart. Near the end, the Sheriff appears to have a broken arm. Sitting at the bar, he puts a rope around his neck and connects it to his injured arm, and uses his good arm to pull on the rope, lifting his shaking beer glass in his bad arm to his mouth, rather than using his good arm to drink. Also smart.

Why doesn't he just use his good arm? I have no idea. That, like everything else in the movie, makes no sense whatsoever, like the title. Summer Love? Are you kidding me? Avoid this mess at all costs.

In the meantime, here's something for the IMDb Goofs page –

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers) : This movie got made. HA!

I wish I would have read more reviews and more opinions about this movie before I rented it. A waste of money. A waste of time. Very little dialog. The dialog was hard to understand in every way. The storyline and plot were both weak. The only thing that was nice at all was the cinematography.

The characters were interesting. At the same time you will spend so much time trying to figure things out, because of the lack of dialog, that you will be rewinding the movie a lot.

Do not watch this movie. It was a mess and will leave you feeling like a mess.

You will say, what the heck was that, when the movie ends?

I mean, come on! Now my countrymen have started to make westerns! Is it not enough that our cinema sucks already? Now you need to infect English-language movies with Polish acting and no sense whatsoever? Please, stay away from this movie, do not waste your eyes on it. A 5-year-old baby could make a movie that makes more sense. I am from Poland and I am ashamed this title might actually be watched by you. Please, I am begging you, do NOT watch this movie and if you do, do NOT judge Polish people and Polish movies based on what you see there. We had some good movies in our history and we had some bad ones but this one - it is like nothing worse that I have seen in my entire life. Keep away!!!

The first thing anyone should know before watching this movie is that the "western" actors have thick Polish accents. It might seem like a mortal flaw, but I got over that by assuming the setting was an Eastern European settlement in Texas.

The thing that always amazes me about so many foreign films that make it to the American market is the vast descrepancy between the movie's pros and cons. On one hand, you have a rough plot that seems to drag on while offering a series of shocking yet in their own right interesting scenes. Again, how can you overlook cowboys with Polish accents? On the other hand, the cinematography was beautiful. In some places, quite creative and all together very well filmed. The soundtrack was a quirky throw-back but used in a way that made it feel dark. On a scene-by-scene basis the editing was more Hollywood than retro despite the fact that as a whole it didn't seem to flow as well as movies we're used to. And again, if you can pretend the actors are supposed to have accents, they do a very good job of playing their roles - disgusting, every one of them.

Bottom line: if you're into quirky, unpolished movies that lack plot flow but excel in cinematography and creativity (and don't mind copious amounts of realistic gore) this movie is quite an offering. Otherwise, it's unlikely to satisfy.

I have to agree with a previous reviewer. A good western can be made in any nation so this is no reflection on Poland. I also love a good spaghetti western but I was very disappointed with this one. It looks like it was easy fast money and an easy fast credit for Val Kilmer so he was smart to take the job since it was only one day. I hope the next western I see that was made in Poland will be better. It looks like the actors did the best they could with what they had. Hang in there everyone.