Director:Â S. Craig Zahler
Cast: Kurt Russell,  Richard Jenkins,  Patrick Wilson,  Sean Young,  Matthew Fox,  Lili Simmons,  David Arquette,  Zahn McClarnon, Kathryn Morris
Rating:Â 18
Running Time:Â 132 mins
Release Date:Â 19th February, 2016
Pound for pound – or is that dollar for dollar? – I would rate Kurt Russell as one of the best, as well as the most versatile and adaptable acting veterans working in Hollywood today.
This legend of Tinseltown can play lead, support and ensemble roles and adapt to studio, blockbuster and independent film-making with the best of them. Blockbuster-wise, he is an actor who hasn’t quite achieved the heights of a Harrison Ford or a Bruce Willis, but he can boast a filmography to die for with so many great offerings over the years.
This year, I for one was rooting for him to achieve a nomination for his collaboration with Quentin Tarantino, THE HATEFUL EIGHT. If his co-star in TANGO AND CASH, Sylvester Stallone, could get one for CREED, why not him? However, that is purely a personal perspective.
Russell has achieved part of his success through his highly-regarded, long-term collaboration with directing legend John Carpenter. Their first teaming, ELVIS (1979), was a three-hour TV movie about the legend that, upon it’s first US broadcast, beat GONE WITH THE WIND and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST in the ratings. It was edited down to two hours and released theatrically in the UK as ELVIS – THE MOVIE through GTO Films. The original TV version premiered in the UK on BBC1 during the Christmas 1981 schedule (on a prime-time Saturday night screening the week before Christmas).
The likes of ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981), THE THING (1982) and BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA (1986) have grown in stature, achieving their popularity away from the big-screen, although they have great reactions whenever they play to an audience.
With Clint Eastwood effectively retired from front of camera roles after GRAN TORINO, it is left to veteran elder statesmen like Russell and Jeff Bridges to take up the mantle with the Western genre. Russell has done pretty well. His first, TOMBSTONE (1994), directed by the late George P. Cosmatos (ESCAPE TO ATHENA, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II) was a rollicking take on the Wyatt Earp legend and beat Lawrence Kasdan‘s underrated and epic WYATT EARP into the theatres that same year. The film held up well, thanks in no part to Val Kilmer‘s excellent performance as Doc Holliday.
Of course, audiences have been enjoying the Tarantino film, which has brought 70mm back to the masses, decades after being used on the likes of IT’S A MAD, MAD, MAD, MAD WORLD (1963)
It is also rare that a star would do two Westerns one after the other, let alone two great ones, but Russell has achieved this in the new Indie Western BONE TOMAHAWK, a terrific Gothic Western. Whilst it may lose ground in the shadow of more high-profile releases like THE REVENANT in current release, BONE TOMAHAWK down the line is going to be another of Russell’s well loved cult-classic offerings. I enjoyed it a lot – a slow-burner exercise in style and violence that evokes the very best of Eastwood and Leone – with a touch of Ruggero (CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST) Deodato and Tarantino thrown in.
Russell plays Sheriff Hunt who, with his Deputy back-up, Chicory (an excellent Richard Jenkins), runs a small town in the frontier of America. His town is interrupted by a lone individual (David Arquette) calling himself Buddy, who Chicory claims has buried some personals of somebody he might have killed in the wilderness near the town. After confronting Buddy, Hunt shoots him and puts him in the cell. However, Buddy has defaced what appears to be an burial ground nearby, something that the rightful owners have taken less kindly to and in the process kidnap Buddy, along with a female doctor treating him. Her husband, Arthur (Patrick Wilson)  asks Hunt and Chicory to help him rescue her from her captives. It’s at this point of the film that it takes on a traditional UNFORGIVEN-style narrative and an adventure in the wide-open spaces begins……
Writer / Director S. Craig Zahler is a savvy and skilled director and in BONE TOMAHAWK showcases a remarkable ability to combine suggestion and visceral violence which evokes the best of Eastwood, Leone, Peckinpah and Tarantino. The first half of the film is a terrific blend of character build up and development and Jenkins is superb in his delivery, proving a perfect foil to Russell’s gruff, cynical Sheriff.
There are some neat cameos, notably James Tolkan as a sleepy-drunk of a piano player (Tolkan played Strickland in BACK TO THE FUTURE and Tom Cruise‘s superior in TOP GUN). Sean Young (BLADE RUNNER) and Michael Pare (STREETS OF FIRE, THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT). It is a real shame Tolkan isn’t in the film more, as it’s a nice performance and against the grain of his more curmudgeonly roles as mentioned.
The only criticism I will have of BONE TOMAHAWK is that the director references earlier Westerns a bit too much, but he has tried here at least to take the Western in a different direction. The characters don’t rely on horses as much in this film, which adds to the tension as they journey in the wilderness. That said, Zahler plays on economical staging and broad strokes in the imagery, which remind one of ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST.
BONE TOMAHAWK is a worthy addition to the genre and one that Russell fans will lap up, alongside avid Western lovers.
Verdict
