I would not have thought to see this if my friend hadn't asked to while visiting. I'm not sure I'd even heard about it before, despite a few familiar names involved (he knew the cast better). Some rating sites score it highly; others deem it fair to middling. At worst, we could enjoy snarking together, but we both hoped it wouldn't come to that primarily.
On-screen text warns up front that the story is fictitious, but the main characters -- seven of them, at least -- are not. The lead is Nat Love (Jonathan Majors), a late-19th-century outlaw who makes a point to target fellow outlaws, as by robbing robbers. Marshal Bass Reeves (Delroy Lindo) ostensibly arrests him but means to enlist his help against a mutual foe: Rufus Buck (Idris Elba), who had killed Nat's parents in front of preteen Nat and carved a cross on his forehead. Buck has just been released, and while his intentions for the town of Redwood might be honorable, he will stop at nothing to acquire the money to fix it up, even at the citizens' expense.
Other RL characters include "Stagecoach" Mary Fields (Zazie Beetz), former postwoman turned saloon owner and Nat's on-and-off love interest; Crawford "Cherokee Bill" Goldsby (Lakeith Stanfield), an outlaw serving herein as Buck's lieutenant; Jim Beckwourth (RJ Cyler), a cocky quick draw working with Nat; and Bill Pickett (Edi Gagethi), a sharpshooter also on Nat's team. There's also Cuffee (Danielle Deadwyler), Mary's open-secretly female bouncer, based more loosely on Cathay Williams, who had diguised herself as a man to join the army; and Wiley Escoe (Deon Cole), a sheriff whom Buck had installed, named after a deputy marshal. The completely fictional figure of greatest interest is "Treacherous" Trudy Smith (Regina King), another Buck follower. Yes, women get plenty to do, including fighting.
Unlike in Hamilton, the real people were all Black. It's a relatively little-known fact that about one in four cowboys were, probably because the heyday of western cinema was in decades inhospitable to Black actors. Does it matter to the plot? Only when some of them visit a White (even painted white) town and get reactions indicating they don't belong there.
Speaking of not belonging, what's more like Hamilton is the soundtrack. Not only is it anachronistic; it sometimes evokes different geography, as with reggae. I don't consider this a flaw per se, because it clues us in to other ways of playing fast and loose with the setting. This is one of the most offbeat non-comedy westerns I've seen.
It also has some of the foulest language and most violence this side of Sam Peckinpah. Oh, it's rarely gruesome, but the fact remains that nearly every scene has somebody killed, hurt, or physically threatened. And of course, none of the major players is better than morally gray, tho Buck clearly leads the nastier gang. I find it appropriate that my friend had narrowed our viewing options to this and The Hateful Eight, given Tarantino's penchants for blood and historical inaccuracy.
Overall, I basically liked THTF. The action gets exciting, especially by the climax. It's funny when it tries to be and perhaps a little when it doesn't. Even the slow parts didn't try my patience; I suspect some inspiration by Sergio Leone. Nevertheless, for all its unorthodoxy, it could get predictable now and then.
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