Three Bad Men (Western)
Picture:
C Sound: C+ Extras: C- Feature: C-
Writer/director
Jeff Hathcock lands actor George Kennedy for a Western and has no idea of what
to do with him in the poor would-be Western Three Bad Men (2007) where the title criminals rob a bank and have
Kennedy’s Ed Fiske to contend with.
Unfortunately, the viewer has to content with an inept script and
directing that makes most B-movie Westerns looks like Ford epics.
Even the
many costumes look phony, but that and Kennedy are the only things worth
watching in this very, very long 118 minutes.
When good Westerns like Open
Range and Seraphim Falls fail to
make it to the general audience, you know the genre is not dead, but still in
trouble. The violence is lame and the conclusion
is as much a dud as the whole shebang.
If you want to see Kennedy at his best, get the DVD of his underrated The Human Factor instead.
The 1.33
X 1 image was videotaped in some kind of low-def digital and makes the whole
thing look too clean and pristine for the location work throughout to ever take
it seriously just on that level. None of
the shots are memorable and I was hoping to see some smoke, fog, dirt or grit
just so it would seem like its time period.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix has awkward surrounds and poor dialogue
placement. The combination is lame as a
result. Except for a trailer for this
and a few other THINKFilm releases, there are no extras.
- Nicholas Sheffo
