Bone Tomahawk (2015)
Cast: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Sean Young
Director: S. Craig Zahler
Country: USA
Genre: Drama
Editor’s Notes: The following review is part of our coverage of the 2015 Fantastic Fest. For more information on the festival visit fantasticfest.com and follow Fantastic Fest on Twitter at @fantasticfest.
Bone Tomahawk is one of those films that looks like a homerun at first glance. It’s a western starring Kurt Russell, a man built for this genre, along with a well-rounded ensemble cast that includes Richard Jenkins, Patrick Wilson and Matthew Fox. The end result doesn’t satisfy nearly as much as it should. The film is excessively long with so-so performances and a glacial pace that hardly makes the film worth your while.
The film is excessively long with so-so performances and a glacial pace that hardly makes the film worth your while.
The film opens with a gruesome scene with genre veterans Sid Haig and David Arquette getting a whole lot of blood on their hands. The makeup and sound effects offers the promise of a splattery good time. The characters are introduced to some badass cannibals that make short work of Haig, while Arquette escapes to a nearby small town. The wanderer (Arquette) fails in his attempt to remain incognito and gets arrested by Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Russell). Overnight, the wanderer, a deputy and a woman are abducted from the sheriff’s office. The men of the town rally in the local bar while an aboriginal man spoon feeds the audience some exposition to get the wagon wheels in motion. The people that abducted the three are troglodytes, a savage group that is known for cannibalism. With the meat and potatoes on the table, Hunt leads a fellowship of men that includes: a badass sheriff, a wise-cracking old man, a mysterious gun-slinger and a badly wounded man.
Bone Tomahawk stumbles out of the gate. The few male/female relationships feel synthetic at best. There are plenty of scenes before they leave the town that simply do not need to exist. The audience is treated to a, “Promise you’ll come home to me” speech from a nagging wife. The man plays it off like it’s nothing and we go through the rest of the motions. The opening bits are meant to get us closer to the characters, but they all come off as surface level western tropes.
The film is designed to be painfully long because the characters are on a long, stressful journey. If they must suffer, so must the audience. Jenkins helps pass the time as comic relief, but many of his jokes fall flat. There’s tension between John Brooder (Matthew Fox) and Arthur O’Dwyer (Patrick Wilson) but that isn’t fully fleshed out. Brooder boasts about killing ‘injuns - but that doesn’t apply here because they are hunting troglodytes. There is history rooted in all of these men and perhaps with a bit of that history brought to the surface they would have been more interesting. Instead, we’re asked to enjoy these characters simply because they’re familiar faces.
If it weren’t for Kurt Russell, this would be a straight to VOD film that would probably find a cult following.
Bone Tomahawk finally picks up at around the 110 minute mark (the runtime is 132 minutes) where the audience gets a dose of that genre goodness that was promised in the opening sequence. The film gets downright nasty as cowboys take on troglodytes. Limbs are severed, blood is spilt and flesh gets eaten. It’s in this bloody climax where most audiences will give this film a free pass and call it a good film. There is no doubt that the special effects and violence on display is fun to watch, but the journey is not worth it in the end.
If only the rest of the film were this good. Some compare this to classic westerns, but those films had strong characters, a terrific script and standout performances. If it weren’t for Kurt Russell, this would be a straight to VOD film that would probably find a cult following. I applaud S. Craig Zahler for pulling no punches with the violence in the film. Few movie goers will be able to keep their eyes on the screen when the inevitable clash plays out. Russell has one more chance to impress with a certain western film that comes out this Christmas.
The film is excessively long with so-so performances and a glacial pace that hardly makes the film worth your while.
