Monday, February 1, 2016

Jane Got a Gun, and Shot Her Eye Out

After a tumultuous production, Jane Got a Gun finally came out.  Though people weren't exactly waiting for it, I did sometimes hear whispers about this film coming out.  Many thought that the January release meant it was awful, and rightfully so.  Jane Got a Gun not only has a stupid name, but it was released in the same month as such classics as Dirty Grandpa and Norm of the North.  Until this movie came out, The 5th Wave was the best movie I had seen in January, and that is pretty sad.  That doesn't mean that this movie is bad in any way though.  This is the best movie to come out this month, and I am going to go out on a limb here and say it will be at least as good as anything coming up in February.

Let's be realistic.  No one cares about this movie.  Just minutes before the lights went down, I took a picture of the audience for this showing.
Sadly there was no change.  As I sat through the beginning, I began to wonder where the hell everyone else was.  It felt like the apocalypse, and I had just grabbed an old dusty western of the shelf and put it into the projector.  There was a feeling of both complete satisfaction that I was able to see it in the theater, and mild depression that there was no one there to share it with me.  But once the movie started I really didn't care whether or not someone else was there.

The movie looks good by the way.  It was shot well with scenes reminding me of classic American Westerns, and scenes right out of a Spaghetti Western.  A good mixture of classic cinema and exploitation.  Violence and swearing happened, but great acting moments were spread around as well.  The movie and the trailers took me less than two hours to sit through.  At a time when even bad comedies are just over two hours, this was a welcome change.  Not only was I watching a good movie, but it was appropriate in run time, if a little short.
Apparently that is Ewan McGregor.  He plays the main bad guy in this movie.  He is accompanied by Natalie Portman as Jane, and Joel Edgerton as Dan Frost.  These two protect Jane's home from the bad guys that are out to kill her.  It is a very basic story that is mostly there for us to get the acting and action out of the characters.  That is fine with me though.  Since when did every movie have to be a 10 out of 10?  Can't a movie simply be good anymore?  A 6 out of 10 is still better than average you know.  That means that a movie is better than more than half the movies you've seen, and if you've seen as many movies as I have, that is a hell of an effort.  Not that this movie would rate that.  I don't know what to rate it honestly.  I was just glad I finally saw something good in the theater again.
It seems that everyone just ignores a movie unless it is 2 hours of superheroes flying around and hitting stuff with the help of CGI.  That is too bad because Joel Edgerton is on a roll as far as I am concerned.  He was in one of my favorite movies last year, The Gift, and yes I mean to say that The Gift was better than Star Wars The Force Awakens.  Jane Got a Gun may not make anyone's top ten, or even anyone's top ten of the year, but what the hell else are you going to watch in the theater right now?  Daddy's Home?  Kung Fu Panda 3?  Yeah I thought so.  Go support movies that are not all the same and see this one instead.  It isn't going to make a person who dislikes westerns suddenly like them, but genre fans will love it.

I enjoyed sitting all by myself with some Raisinets and watching a movie of appropriate length, then leaving the theater satisfied.  It's like regular sex, but with that feeling of really wanting it.  Pretty damn cool if you ask me.  It is way better than no sex.  That is this movie, regular sex.  If I had one complaint, I wished there was a bit more going on in the end as it felt rushed.  Or maybe the plot twist element should have come half way through the movie to drive the characters forward and add weight.  Just a thought, but there certainly isn't anything wrong with the way in ended.  So go watch this movie dammit!

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