Cassidy Red

Good acting, good history and good aesthetic. Good lighting, good music, good photography, that's innegable. Only who don´t know nothing can say other thing, or only a hater.

Perhaps it is not the best movie in the world, but it has all the ingredients for seeing it and enjoying it.

The firecracker daughter (Abby Eiland) of an alcoholic gunslinger and a prostitute makes an enemy of the local mogul in southern Arizona (David Thomas Jenkins). When her beloved is captured under trumped-up charges and feared dead (Jason Grasl), she has to turn to her lousy father (Rick Cramer) in order to set things a'right.

"Cassidy Red" (2017) is an artistic Indie with a reverent tone, great score, nice cinematography, decent no-name actors and authentic Southwest locations. This was Matt Knudsen's only film as writer/director; he usually works in the camera/electrical department. Despite its kickstarter origins, the movie worked for me as a moving arty ballad rooted in a romantic triangle with an Old West milieu.

Despite the nod to "Hannie Caulder" (and its unacknowledged remake, "6 Guns"), the story & style smack of originality with the setting switching back-and-forth from 1899, 1874 and 1863, although 1874 is the main setting described above.

Eiland does well as the no-nonsense protagonist. Also notable on the feminine front is Lola Kelly (Rowena), Jessy Knudsen (Quinn) and Alyssa Elle Steinacker (Young Joe).

The film runs 1 hour, 31 minutes, and was shot in Old Tucson and the nearby Sonoran Desert with some stuff done in Santa Clarita, north of Los Angeles.

GRADE: B/B-

This move moves lethargically, like a turtle on Thorazine. It is best described as a thinking man's western, just, in this case, it's a thinking woman...or rather, a girl. A girl who doesn't watch westerns, and prefers Glee. It does have some nice cinematography though, and we see Arizona landscape in all its splendor. Even the sets are quite ok for a low budget western. And now the bad... the story is of revenge, revenge at the stray viewer who stumbles upon it on the Prime...The creators were aware of the western form and canons, but were not able to substantiate it, or infuse any genuine soul in this project. Oh, and did I mention that, it is lacking energy until the very end, when it is released in a somewhat farcical way. Acting is largely amateurish, making it annoying at times. The sound follows closely. I would give it 3 stars were it not for the fake upvoting, so, for the sake of fairness, 2/10.

A romantic western told in retrospective about young love to be lost. The story isn't much though it's nicely told. If the writing were as good as the pictures and visual telling, the directing, acting, casting, costumes and perhaps above all, the music, this could have been a real pearl. Not a bad try - not at all, and probably perfect for someone in, or who lost their love.

I oftentimes check imdb ratings before watching the movie, for in most of the cases ratings give a pretty good estimation of the quality of the movie. For some reason, I started to watch this movie even if the rating is fairly low, and I was surprised of the quality of the movie. Story, cast, directing and overall quality of the movie was actually fairly good. It did not feel like a waste of time at all.

Having said that, there is something simplistic or hard-boild in the movie, including some of the characters, and that is likely to make some people critical about their reviews. At the same time I can't help seeing something artistic in this movie. I kind of enoyed its simplicity and slow pace.

So, my point is that the oveall quality of this movie may be better than the ratings it has got. I would have expected this to be rated somewhere in the region of 5.5 or even higher. In all, this movie is worth watching. In spite of its obvious clichés, it brings some novel nuances to the Western genre.