Bone Tomahawk

Starring: Kurt Russell, Patrick Wilson, Matthew Fox, Richard Jenkins, Lili Simmons, David Arquette, Evan Jonigkeit, Fred Melamed
Directed by: S. Craig Zahler
Rating: R
Genre: Western, Adventure, Horror
2015

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A sheriff (Kurt Russell) leads a rescue party to retrieve a group kidnapped by cannibals.

Review:

Tim: I've seen a lot of movies in my day (obviously), so it's pretty rare that I say something like, "What the hell did I just watch?" upon finishing a movie. That's exactly what I said about Bone Tomahawk, one of the craziest, most unexpected movies of the year. I still don't fully know what I think about the movie. There were some things I loved and some things that were problematic. This probably doesn't do quite enough to be a good movie, but it's certainly an unconventional one.

The heart of the movie involves four men who go off in search of captives who were kidnapped by Indians. This is pretty straightforward. Much of the movie does follow the conventions of the genre. It's just the parts that don't follow the expected paths are really out there. Now, I generally enjoyed seeing these four people together. You have Kurt Russell playing the tough as nails sheriff- a good part for him. It utilizes his strengths and allows him to play in his wheelhouse. Patrick Wilson is going in search of his kidnapped wife. The odd thing about him is that he's suffering from a broken leg. Now, part of me loves that his character has a broken leg- it's a vulnerability that you don't often see in movies like this. It is a severe limiter and changes the course of his story. The other part of me lamented how much time we spend on him and his broken leg- it felt like too much of the story was focused there. It was almost like the main storyline got distracted by it. Wilson is good, however. Matthew Fox is someone I really love because of "Lost", but his performance wasn't as convincing as it needed to be. His performance felt forced and occasionally clunky. He has some strong moments, but there were quite a few weak ones as well. I loved Richard Jenkins here- he's such a good actor and brings a lot to the role. The best part of the film involves seeing these four men interact. That takes up the bulk of the middle of the film.

Up to this point, the movie has only hinted as the weirdness on the edges of the story. It feels like a slight variation of the traditional Western story. When our protagonists catch up to the cave dwelling Indians, well, things spiral out of control. You have a lot of gore. You have some insane sounds that were hard to listen to (and excellently creepy). The Indians are cannibals and we get some grotesque, hard to watch scenes. This is all unexpected. We usually don't see this much gore involved in a Western and the antagonists don't feel like specters from hell (they weren't but they certainly felt borderline supernatural). It all adds up to an unexpected film. Some of that is very good, but everything that's thrown at us doesn't stick. Some of it just seems too out there. It doesn't help that the movie is about 20 minutes too long, at 2 hours, 12 minutes. It's just a lot to sit through.

While I really appreciated certain aspects of this film, in the end, there was too much that I didn't like. The weirdness of the story made the movie a tiny bit inaccessible. The amount of time spent on the broken leg got on my nerves. The payoff at the end felt good, but not quite enough to warrant such a long run time. Bone Tomahawk is a unique movie and fairly decent. However, I can't say I enjoyed the movie as much as I should have.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Hateful Eight