Ned Kelly is an Australian film directed by Gregor Jordan. The movie portrays the life of Ned Kelly who was a well-known bushranger in Australia. The film is mainly based on Robert Drewe’s book Our Sunshine.
Cast
- Heath Ledger Ned Kelly
- Orlando Bloom Joe Byrne
- Geoffrey Rush Superintendent Francis Hare
- Naomi Watts Julia Cook
- Joel Edgerton Aaron Sherritt
- Laurence Kinlan Dan Kelly
- Philip Barantini Steve Hart
- Kerry Condon Kate Kelly
- Kris McQuade Ellen Kelly
- Emily Browning Grace Kelly
- Kiri Paramore Constable Fitzpatrick
- Rachel Griffiths Susan Scott
- Geoff Morrell Robert Scott
- Charles Tingwell Premier Graham Berry
The Missing is a 2003 film directed by Ron Howard, based on the novel The Last Ride by Thomas Eidson. This Western thriller set in 1880′s New Mexico is notable for the authentic use of the Apache language by various actors, some of whom spent long hours studying it. The film was produced by Revolution Studios and Imagine Entertainment and distributed by Columbia Pictures.
Plot
Set in 19th-century New Mexico, Samuel Jones (Jones) reappears hoping to reconcile with his adult daughter Maggie Gilkeson (Blanchett). She is unable to forgive him for abandoning the family and leaving her mother to a hard life and early death. This situation changes when a Apache medicine man and a dozen of his followers who have left the reservation pass through the area, ritualistically killing settlers and taking their daughters to be sold into prostitution south of the American border. Among those captured is the eldest daughter of the family, Lily.
The U.S. Cavalry refuses to help retrieve the captive women as its resources are tied up conducting forced relocation of captive Native Americans. This leaves Maggie, her father, and the younger daughter alone in tracking the attackers. We discover that Jones had been a member of a Chiricahua band where he gained the name Chaa-duu-ba-its-iidan (translates as “shit for luck”) during his wanderings. Among the captives is a young Chiricahua woman and it is finally the combined families who make a near suicidal attempt to free the women.
Jones fights El Brujo, the one responsible for kidnapping his granddaughter, Lilly. When Brujo attempts to kill Maggie, Jones sacrifices his life to save his daughter as both he and Brujo fall to their deaths. Maggie realizes her father’s love for her and finally forgives him at his death.
Main cast
- Tommy Lee Jones – Samuel Jones/Chaa-duu-ba-its-iidan
- Cate Blanchett – Maggie Gilkeson
- Evan Rachel Wood – Lilly Gilkeson
- Jenna Boyd – Dot Gilkeson
- Aaron Eckhart – Brake Baldwin
- Val Kilmer – Lt. Jim Ducharme
- Sergio Calderón – Emiliano
- Eric Schweig – Pesh-Chidin/El Brujo
- Steve Reevis – Two Stone
- Jay Tavare – Kayitah
- Simon R. Baker – Honesco
Gang of Roses is a 2003 Western action drama film directed by Jean-Claude La Marre. It starred Monica Calhoun, Lil’ Kim, Lisa Raye, Bobby Brown, Stacy Dash, and Marie Matiko.
Plot
The film starts off with Left Eye Watkins (Brown) and his gang attempting to bully Sheriff Shoeshine Michel (Louis Mandylor) into giving them gold and women. A female member of the gang is extremely enthusiastic about the women and sets out to rape a can-can girl in the middle of town. While resisting, the can-can cuts the female gang member who in turns shoots her in the middle of the road. The problem is, the can-can girl happens to be the sister of Rachel (Calhoun), the protagonist. Rachel, a religious, reformed bad girl, rounds up her former gang members to seek revenge.
Cast
- Monica Calhoun as Rachel
- Lil’ Kim as Chastity
- Stacey Dash as Kim
- Marie Matiko as Zang Li
- LisaRaye as Maria
- Bobby Brown as Left Eye Watkins
- Louis Mandylor as Sheriff Shoeshine Michel
- Jacinto Taras Riddick as Georgy Simone
- Charity Hill as Little Suzie
- Glenn Plummer as Johnny Handsome
- Macy Gray as Black Haired Woman
- Mario Van Peebles as Jessie Lee
American Outlaws is a 2001 Western film directed by Les Mayfield. It starred Colin Farrell, Scott Caan, and Ali Larter.
Critical reaction
American Outlaws opened to a dismal box office take and mostly negative reviews. Many critics cited a poor sense of time and place as a major cause of the film’s problems. Others just dismissed the film as another Young Guns ripoff.
Cast
- Colin Farrell – Jesse James
- Scott Caan – Cole Younger
- Ali Larter – Zee Mimms
- Gabriel Macht – Frank James
- Gregory Smith – Jim Younger
- Harris Yulin – Thaddeus Rains
- Will McCormack – Bob Younger
- Kathy Bates – Ma James
- Timothy Dalton – Allan Pinkerton
- Ronny Cox – Doc Mimms
- Terry O’Quinn – Rollin Parker
- Nathaniel Arcand – Comanche Tom
- Muse Watson – Burly Detective
- Ed Geldart – Old Man Tucker
Shanghai Noon is a 2000 action-adventure-comedy-western film starring Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson. Directed by Tom Dey, it was written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar. The movie, set in Nevada and other parts of the west in the 19th century, is a juxtaposition of a western with a Jackie Chan Kung Fu action movie with extended martial arts sequences. It also has elements of comedy and the “Buddy Cop” film genre, as it involves two men of different personalities and ethnicities (a Chinese imperial guard and a Western outlaw) who team up to stop a crime.
The title (a pun on the Gary Cooper classic High Noon) and several names used in the film pay homage to earlier westerns. Chan’s character, “Chon Wang” is meant to sound like John Wayne, and the antagonist, Nathan Van Cleef, is an homage to Lee Van Cleef, who played “the Bad” in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, among other roles in major westerns. In addition, Roy O’Bannon (Owen Wilson’s character) reveals at the end that his real name is Wyatt Earp, which Chon laughingly dismisses as “a terrible name for a cowboy”.
Cultural References
- The Chinese characters shown in the background during the opening credits are excerpts from a translation of “The Frog Prince.”
- Chon Wang is the Chinese translation/pronunciation of John Wayne. However, in the case of Jackie Chan’s character, Chon represents his last name while Wang is his first name. This represents the order Chinese names are presented.
- The song playing during the first bar-fight sequence is the same song that plays during the The Dirty Dozen (1967)-style intro of the characters in Armageddon (1998), an earlier film which starred Owen Wilson.
- The song played when Roy is teaching Chon to be a cowboy is Kid Rock’s “Cowboy”.
- The name of Marshall Nathan Van Cleef is a homage to Lee Van Cleef, who starred in many spaghetti westerns.
- The line “I don’t know karate, but I know crazy” is a line from a James Brown song.
- During the scene where Roy and Chon are drunk in the hotel, director Tom Dey hoped to include a drunken kung fu scene as an homage to Jui kuen II (1994) Legend of the Drunken Master (1994). There was no time to choreograph such a scene, so Dey showed Chon blowing bubbles from his mouth, as Wong Fei-hung does in the Drunken Master movie.
Cast
- Chon Wang / John Wayne :Jackie Chan
- Princess Pei-Pei: Lucy Liu
- Roy O’Bannon / Wyatt Earp :Owen Wilson
- Falling Leaves:Brandon Merrill
- Nathan Van Cleef:Xander Berkeley
- Calvin Andrews :Jason Connery
- Wallace:Walton Goggins
The Claim is a 2000 British Western/romance film directed by Michael Winterbottom. The screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce is loosely based on the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. The original music score is composed by Michael Nyman. It was filmed in the vicinity of Calgary, Alberta.
Plot summary
In 1867, Daniel Dillon is an Irish immigrant who settled in California during the Gold Rush of ’49 and has done quite well for himself. Dillon owns nearly every business of consequence in the town of Kingdom Come; if someone wants to dig for gold, rent a room, open a bank account, or even order a drink, they have to go to Dillon to do it. One of the few profitable enterprises in town that he doesn’t own is the brothel, which is operated by Lucia, Dillon’s Portuguese lover. This cosy arrangement is disturbed by the arrival of a coachload of travellers.
Donald Dalglish is a surveyor with the Central Pacific Railroad, which wants to put a train either through Kingdom Come, or somewhere in the vicinity. He is here to decide the route. Dillon is anxious to ensure that the railway line is routed through “his” town, as this will bring more business. Arriving in town with Dalglish are two women, the beautiful but ailing Elena Burn and her lovely teenage daughter Hope; their presence is deeply troubling for Dillon, for they are the keys to a dark secret Dillon has kept from the people of Kingdom Come for nearly twenty years. Like Hardy’s Mayor of Casterbridge, he had “sold” them 20 or so years earlier, in his case to a disillusioned prospector named Burn: Burn has died, and Elena is in need of money. (A major departure from “The Mayor of Casterbridge” is that Hope is indeed Dillon’s daughter.)
Much of the emotional interest in the film revolves around Dalglish’s ambivalent relations with Lucia (ditched by Dillon when his wife re-appears) and Hope, who is eminently nubile and altogether “a better class of person”.
The death of Elena coincides with the decision to route the railway some distance from the town. Dillon is thus faced with a double blow.
Cast
- Peter Mullan Daniel Dillon
- Milla Jovovich Lucia
- Wes Bentley Donald Dalglish
- Nastassja Kinski Elena Burn/Elena Dillon
- Sarah Polley Hope Burn
- Julian Richings Bellanger
- Sean McGinley Sweetley
- Duncan Frasier Crocker
All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 film, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and based on the novel of the same title by American author Cormac McCarthy. It stars Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz.
Plot summary
The movie tells the story of John Grady Cole, a sixteen year old cowboy, and his best friend Lacey Rawlins, crossing the border to move south to Mexico.
They encounter, among others, a young boy named Jimmy Blevins, whom they befriend, and a young aristocrat’s daughter, Alejandra, with whom John Grady Cole falls in love. In Mexico he becomes disillusioned by the atrocities of the world.
Critical response
Reviews of the film were generally negative, criticizing it as a poor adaptation of the novel and a dramatically un-involving film. The comment of Entertainment Weekly critic Lisa Schwarzbaum was typical: “Faced with a choice of blunt instruments with which to beat a good book into a bad movie, director Billy Bob Thornton chooses heavy, random, arty imagery and a leaden pace.” The characters were also derided as undeveloped, and some reviewers considered there to be a lack of chemistry between the lead actors. The film’s sweeping visuals, however, were consistently praised.
