Jane Got A Gun

So I'm at a crossroad. Either I am all Westerned out and I think I will probably not watch another one for a long time now that all of the Westerns are off my Netflix list... OR I am now on a Western kick and am gonna be replaying Red Dead Redemption all throughout Christmas. I haven't totally decided yet.

Jane Got A Gun is a story set in the Old West and starts with the main character Jane Hammond (played by Natalie Portman) seeing her husband Bill (played by Noah Emmerich) returning home badly wounded from a gun fight. He is able to inform her that The Bishop Boys are coming for him and that she needs to run. But it is soon discovered that Jane is not the kind of woman that goes and runs from danger.

She leaves her daughter with a friend and then goes off to prepare for the coming of the Bishop Boys, a band of outlaws led by John Bishop (played by Ewan McGregor) and his younger brother Vic (played by Boyd Holbrook).

But Jane can't fight off this gang alone.

She recruits the help of her former fiance, a man by the name of Dan Frost (played by Joel Edgerton) to help defend her farm and her husband.

What follows is a pretty slow movie where Jane and Dan are preparing the farm for the upcoming attack by the Bishop Boys as well as the two of them uncovering the truth of what happened in the 10 years since they were engaged and what happened to Jane to make her fall in love with another man and leave Dan.

Now half way through this movie I was getting a little bit bored. Because like I said, this is just Natalie Portman and Joel Edgerton preparing for an attack. There's not really any action in the second act of this movie because they're just sitting around waiting for Ewan McGregor to show up for the final gun fight.

The real drama in this movie comes from when they are discussing what happened to Jane after Dan left for the Civil War and how she became associated with the Bishop Boys.

And halfway through the film, I couldn't help but get a little bit bored because I didn't know what the hell all this was leading up to.

That is until the end.

I have to give the movie credit, it does have a pretty good twist at the end and you do finally understand where it all comes together.

The problem is, this movie is as slow as molasses. I tried to turn it on late last night and even from the very start of this film, I could tell this was a movie I needed to be alert for because otherwise I was going to fall straight asleep.

So while the twist and the culmination of all the flashbacks is actually pretty good, I'm not sure the long route they took to get us to that ending doesn't exactly redeem the movie.

Now it sounds like this movie went through production hell with a bunch of director changes and a bunch of casting issues. Apparently Joel Edgerton was originally cast as Ewan Mcgregor's character but then people dropped out and roles were switched. And big names were attached to this film as well! Names like Michael Fassbender, Jude Law, and Bradley Cooper all were attached to this film at one time and they eventually came down to Ewan McGregor.

But here's the thing. I actually liked the cast.

While I could potentially see Joel Edgerton in the role that Ewan McGregor played, I imagine he would have been a more rough and tumble version of that outlaw. Instead Edgerton's Dan Frost is a rough rider type but definitely has those soft eyes that make you feel sorry for him. I guess it just speaks to the versatility of Joel Egerton that he can play both a very good guy and a very bad guy in the same movie and the director thought it was a good idea to just make the switch. I personally liked the choice.

I definitely need to watch more of Joel Edgerton's work because I can't say I'm totally familiar with all the work he's done. I think 2016 has been the year where I've been exposed to it more, but besides the hype that I always hear about the performances he's been dealing out as of late, I honestly still see him as young Owen Lars from the Star Wars prequels. The guy can act and this might be the movie that introduces me to more of Joel Edgerton as a serious actor. Well this and Midnight Special but I'm excited.

And speaking of the Star Wars Prequels, let's talk Ewan McGregor.

So I'm of the suspicion that this movie had to change directions a little bit when Ewan McGregor was cast as John Bishop because I'm going to be honest, when I heard he was an outlaw, I couldn't quite picture it. I love Ewan McGregor and I was worried I was going to be a little bit biased in this review but when I first saw him I was a little bit worried how they were going to make this work.

But McGregor gives a good performance and is actually a pretty good villain. I don't know if it's the same villain that Joel Edgerton was originally reported to play but I think McGregor made it his own and played to his own strengths with this character.

Instead of making him a flat out outlaw, they sort of make him an entrepreneur who is definitely still a bandit but seems to be making an enterprise out of his criminal life. I think this was well done and it feeds into the story really well.

But at the end of the day, this was supposed to be Natalie Portman's moment to shine.

Now Natalie Portman's performance goes very much in tandem with the rest of the movie. At times it gets really good and there are some really powerful moments in the film. But then there are a lot of moments where there is just kind of dead space and it gets kind of boring.

There are two really great moments in this movie where Natalie Portman reminded me that she is a really good actress and those were probably my favorite parts of the film.

Like I said before, the backstory that they have going while Jane and Dan are preparing their house for the upcoming attack is pretty good. I almost wish that was the movie instead of the boring game of fortress they set up with little to no reward.

The last shootout scene is not bad, but I've definitely seen better and I'm not totally sure it was worth the hour of exposition and really boring sitting around and talking scenes that set it up. The action is good but that's really only when it happens and it doesn't happen nearly enough. I had moments in the film where I was interested and drawn in, but those moments were like blips on a radar of a really, REALLY slow movie.

 I originally picked Jane Got a Gun this morning because I was already in a Western mood from True Grit and I saw it was only about a one hundred minute movie which worked for me because I wasn't ready to sit through another 3 hour movie like I did with Boyhood yesterday.

But this movie felt much longer than it was.

Overall, Jane Got a Gun was actually an interesting story, its just the execution of it was all wrong. As much drama there was with the casting, I actually thought the performances were pretty good and I thought everyone did a good job. However, the script and atmosphere of the movie was so slow that it got pretty boring at times.

Everyone has been telling me that I have to finish Westworld and I'm worried that if I don't I'm going to get it spoiled for me. If I am still in a Western mood, I might be moving into the more sci fi western genre with Westworld, but Jane Got a Gun made the whole genre a little bit boring for me right now.

But those are my thoughts on Jane Got a Gun! What did you think? Did you enjoy it? What did you think of the casting how it finally got put together? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me on Twitter, you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So similar to having a bias towards Ewan McGregor, I probably have a bias towards Natalie Portman. It's probably a Star Wars prequel thing, but I want to see those people succeed. This new Portman movie, Jackie actually looks pretty good. Enjoy!