Saturday, November 8, 2008

The Legend of God's Gun (2007)



Four criminals are wanted dead or alive, the chase is on and a dopey bounty hunter has dollar signs in his eyes when he catches up to the now horseless band near the town of Playa Diablo, an 1880's ghost town in the making, helmed by a corrupt sheriff (writer/director Mike Bruce) and his libertine (and hot) wife make way when a Man With No Name-ish vengeful preacher and a prosaic psycho-outlaw named El Sobero (played by the other mastermind behind this grinding, acid-colored Western, Kirpatrick Thomas) cross paths in the midst of town.

The Legend of God's Gun, known by its creators as "gravel grindhouse", is ultimately a film nearly anyone with imagination and several friends could make, and that's why it kicks so much ass, but you'd be hard-pressed to come close to this one-of-a-kind, three-years-in-the-making homage to the Spaghetti Western. That being said, the bad news is God's Gun is erratic and masturbatory even as the story is always moving forward (one minor flashback aside); I recall a 4-minute "movie" from high school A/V which we thought was the next Deer Hunter... Reality check. Back to God's Gun, some of the film noise gets out of hand in the early scenes, and maybe the strongest criticism of all, at 80 minutes it might be 20 minutes too long. However, it's loaded with solid music (Thomas' band Spindrift appeared on another grind house film's soundtrack, namely Hell Ride.) and supports the pace well and is a perfect accompaniment to the many showdown scenes, culminating with Gram Rabbit's "Devil's Playground" played over the end credits, with video!

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