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RANDOM FX'S REVIEW | J GRAHAM'S REVIEW | PEDRO'S REVIEW RANDOM FX Reviews BLAZE OF GLORY I have to say that I’m not a big fan of Westerns. It’s always been a dirty, dusty, boring area of history that I’ve tried to avoid. But, here before me sits a script by Teufel and I have to admit that “Blaze of Glory,” is far more entertaining than I could’ve anticipated. Out of all the reasons I gave for not liking Westerns, boredom has to be the biggest factor, but by injecting a sense of humour to proceedings, Teufel has created a very accessible script, which zips along at a good pace. Blaine Hansom had some of the better lines and I found the character of Clint to be amusing as well, as the undercover priest who wastes no time in getting ‘undercover.’ The story seems a relatively normal affair for this genre, with a small town being laid siege to by a group of outlaws, however the good plotting reveals their motives neatly. First there is the revelation that Texas Red wants something that’s in the town and then after we discover that there are two government agents who are the only one’s to know the McGuffin’s location – I say McGuffin since the actual item is never revealed. Events then quickly wind up to the inevitable conclusion of a high noon showdown, which is when you realise that the main plot was merely a precursor for the sub plot. It’s all about Blaine Hansom facing the past he shared with Texas Red, and the final moments of the film are unexpected, yet fitting. The only drawback is that things seem to end abruptly and makes the main story of the film almost worthless, since the sub plot really isn’t strong enough to warrant the entire movie. Characters in this movie are numerous and, for the most part, distinguishable. Blaine Hansom is portrayed as a less than perfect individual who seems resigned to the fact that he’s never going to get re-elected as Sheriff and wants to move on. I found it quite difficult to fully sympathise with because of his actions. He is first in a relationship with Miss Kitty (a busty Salma Hayek) and everything seems to be going down a treat. However, she leaves town for a just a few days and in literally NO time at all Blaine is in bed with the Rose of Paris, and the following day he pretty signals his intentions to commit himself to her. The simple reason for this is the superficial nature of appearance and you just wonder how long it before he finds a woman even more beautiful than Virginie Ledoyen… a long time, in my opinion, but it could happen. Miss Kitty has far more personality about her, however, and makes her the more interesting proposition. What’s more, Blaine seems quite happy to be a bad Sheriff. He’s a loser who beds hookers, when it comes down to it, and while he does have some funny lines, telling the God-loving old lady to ‘take it up the rear’ in the local whorehouse, is a step too far in my book (Random Musings, priced $9.99, and is available from all good book stores.) Texas Red is strangely a far more sympathetic character. He’s the principal villain, so how come? Well, it’s quite simply through his actions, in terms of what we do and don’t see. The first bounty hunter that comes along to turn him in isn’t met with a bullet, but rather Texas Red talks to him a while, giving the guy a chance to leave. Even though the hunter ends up dead, we don’t see anything that allows us to pin the death on Red. And when it comes to meeting Blaine, Texas doesn’t draw his gun and furthermore gives the towns people a peaceful solution to the matter. The fact that Blaine turns down this offer when he could have delivered on it only further adds to weight to the argument that perhaps Hansom is the real villain here. The dialogue in the script is decent throughout, although the length of speech for each character is sometimes too long. Just think about how many times you say more than two sentences to someone before they reply? Interaction between characters is hampered by this lengthy dialogue, but mostly towards the end between Hansom and Red. Overall I would recommend ‘Blaze of Glory’ as a good read and I expect the film to do very well a the box office. 75/100 J GRAHAM Reviews BLAZE OF GLORY I am an enormous fan, repeat ENORMOUS, fan of Westerns. Since pretty much stocking my DVD shelves with them, I need to get my fix in whatever way possible. Waiting until season 2 of 'Deadwood' comes out on DVD is a chore, so I scrolled around hoping to find something, and I chanced upon 'Blaze of Glory,' which I hadn't read upon release. The film revolves around the local sheriff of a nothing town in the heart of the Midwest. Blaine Hansom is content being a rather useless Sheriff, who enforces the law whenever the fancy takes him. Set to lose by a landslide in the next election for Sheriff, Hansom also prepares to pack up and ship out, before a devil from his past, Texas Red, materializes out of the desert and lays siege to the town. Why? He wants something in it. Why? We aren't told. In fact, we aren't ever told. Now, maybe it's because I saw 'The Wild Bunch' last night, but for the most part, 'Glory' doesn't do it for me. It zips along at a nice pace, has entertaining and easy dialog, distinguishable characters, and a great back-story that connects the hero and the villain. But I felt unsatisfied. There's no resolution, or catharsis for any of the characters; the film takes stock in most Western clichés; the characters don't really have a sense of self, and usually just do things that move the plot along; and the film doesn't manage to inject anything new into the genre that was once Hollywood's bread and butter. Sure, it's ballsy. When you get to the end of the film, there's no climactic battle sequence between the rebels and the town's inhabitants (which the film leads you to believe right up until the fact), and the writer has the guts to centre the film on its characters, rather than their motivations. But the whole situation felt like drinking a glass of water and not feeling at all vanquished. Nonetheless, the film does mostly everything right. It clips along at a brisk pace, and reveals the character's back-stories in a thorough manner that draws the viewer in. Blaine Hansom, who is pretty much THE story, is not much of a sympathetic figure. His arc basically goes from him being a loose fellar who beds the local Madame and swears at old ladies, to being a righteous, upstanding fellar who's ready to defy Texas Red. Seeing as we don't know what Texas Red is after, the back-story's revelations makes it out that hansom dearly owes the guy for everything he's managed to get in his entire life. That and he makes life-altering decisions at the drop of a hat. Red himself remains an enigma. We know the history that he and Hansom share by the end of the film, but other than being a tough, gritty sonofagun who looks towards the future with all intent and purpose, he remains shrouded in shadows. But despite its shortcomings, the film itself is a genuinely entertaining read, just brace yourself for the rather rough and abrupt landing that it takes you to. 60/100 “Blaze Of Glory” is Teufel’s attempt to make a film at FM. As far as western’s go this one isn’t half bad. PLOT: With the cast in this film, I honestly thought that this would be another “Young Guns” movie and maybe we would hear some Jon Bon Jovi songs. Thankfully, this wasn’t the case. The plot follows a gang led by Texas Red (Antonio Banderas) unleashing hell onto the people that they come across. They find out that something that Texas Red really wants is located in Marysville. So of course they head that way. However they really don’t want to go barging in there. They get word that the town is without a Reverend, so they send one of their men Clint (Robert Picardo) to go in and act as a Reverend. We get a nice look into the town of Marysville. We meet the sheriff, Blaine Hansom (Kevin Costner). This guy really comes off as a horrible poster boy for sheriff. He swears, drinks and sleeps with whores in brothels. He even has a relationship going on with the woman running the brothel, Miss Kitty (Salma Hayek), She goes off however for a few days and Hansom falls in love with one of the brothel whores, The Rose Of Paris (Virginie Ledoyen). When Miss Kitty returns, she isn’t too happy about this relationship. Hansom is also running for re-election for sheriff against Thomas Pickney (Charlie Sheen). It also looks like he’ll loose in a landslide with his shenanigans. We also find out that one of the residents of Marysville, Jack Angel (Michael Biehn) is some sort of Government agent who has hid what Texas Red is looking for in Marysville, months before. Hansom goes off to talk to Texas Red and it turns out that the two of them knew each other from before and uses to be childhood friends. In this flashback we see Hansom’s father, sheriff Stephen Hansom (Martin Sheen cameo) but we don’t see the killer. Texas Red warns Hansom to get him what he wants from the town and he’ll leave or else there basically will be hell to pay. So at the end of the film there is a big fight between Hansom and Texas Red. However we get one last flashback sequence and we see who kills Hansom’s father. Shockingly, it’s Hansom. Hansom kills his own father. However, Texas Red or as he was known then as Juan, takes the blame and goes to prison for Blaine. We then go back to the final fight between Hansom and Texas Red. Texas Red ends up killing Hansom. The Rose Of Paris goes to his side as he dies and cries over his dead body. She then lifts Hansom’s weapon and shoots Texas Red repeatedly with it, until he dies. The film ends with Texas Red’s gang looking over his dead body. The plot of this western was actually pretty decent. I’m glad that this western was more about character development and how the characters live and act. Most westerns overshadow this and just go straight for the killing. This western didn’t do that and that was smart. We see the old plot line though of two friends meeting again, one now a lawman and the other a criminal. Ironic how the film portrays in flashbacks that it should have been the other way around. I liked the plot a lot, but I just didn’t care much for the ending. I think the film ended too abruptly. Maybe I was just expecting to see people ride away into the sunset in this western, but westerns don’t all end that way and we have to accept that. Teufel did a really great job at bringing a western to the screen. FINAL PLOT GRADE: 85/100 DIALOGUE: The dialogue wasn’t pretty bad for a western. I loved Kevin Costner’s dialogue as the sherif, Blaine Hansom. He knows that he is a crappy lawman basically and just makes fun of himself throughout the whole movie and I really dug that. I thought that the dialogue between the other characters were great too. I honestly liked the relationship between Hansom and The Rose of Paris and thought that they had good dialogue. Even the dialogue between Hansom and Texas Red were great and you got a sense of the chemistry they had as kids in their dialogue. The characters all just seemed to talk like they should. FINAL DIALOGUE GRADE: 95/100 CHARACTERS: I loved the characters in this film and I think it’s very hard to write good characters in western films and I give credit to the writer for writing compelling ones. I think that Hansom is a classic character as the sheriff and I’m glad that Teufel decided to write him and make him really compelling. I think that most of the characters were great in this western and I loved Texas Red as the villain or hero if you look at it from a different perspective. However the characters were not perfect. I really didn’t buy Miss Kitty as the brothel owner and thought that her character was a bit plain, even though it is nice to see a woman as a brothel owner. FINAL CHARACTERS GRADE: 95/100 CASTING: I baiscally loved the whole cast, well almost. Kevin Costner is perfect as Hansom and greatly chosen as the director. Antonio Banderas is almost as equally as great as Costner and it’s nice to see people using actors like Danny Trejo in films. Oh, and Virginie Ledoyen is hot! However, Miss Kitty isn’t in the film enough to cast a bigger actress like Salma Hayek in the role. We needed to see a lesser known actress cast in this role. FINAL CASTING GRADE: 90/100 PACING: The pacing was ok. I’m glad that we got to see more characters introduced in this film and more time to get to know them but this time can get pretty boring and I was just hoping for some more action in this film. We got to many talky scenes and we needed there just to be more “oompth.” I was a bit bored in some sequences of the film, but thankfully the characters weren’t too boring so it wasn’t a complete waste of my time. FINAL PACING GRADE: 60/100 ADVERTISING: I don’t remember seeing too many advertisements, there probably were a lot, maybe, I just don’t remember seeing them. The website was ok, a little plain. The poster looked like almost every other western film, well at least here on FM, a poster with bullet holes in it. I was just not too jazzed about the advertising campaign. FINAL ADVERTISING GRADE: 35/100 WRITING: Overall the writing was very good. I think that Teufel must have spent a lot of time on this film and he knew just what would work in this western. I’m more tuned into these kind of films from Teuf I think than his epics. I think that the characters were written very well and made a hell of a film, although sometimes it got boring. I just think that overall the writing in this film was very decent. One gripe I have though is too many scenery explanations in the film and historic background. If we can’t see it, please do not mention it unless it is in voice over narration. Teuf has written a very fine film her though. A very fine film indeed. FINAL WRITING GRADE: 80/100 FINAL OVERALL GRADE: 78/100
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