Genre: Western/Drama
Director: Robert Rodriguez
Writer: Ben Collins
Cast: James McAvoy, Elizabeth Olsen, John Leguizamo, Don Cheadle, Jim Sturgess, Frank Grillo, Gary Cole, Michael Rapaport, Camilla Belle
Plot: We are in Salt Flat in Utah in 1873. Stub Preston (James McAvoy) a card-shard and gambling trickster, arrives in the small Wild West town to practice his art at the local casino. However, the town sheriff Mason (Frank Grillo) recognizes him climbing out of the stagecoach and within minutes, he is in a jail cell for the night and his marked cards are burned. Stubby's cell-mates are Emmanuelle 'Bunny' O'Neill a prostitute (Elizabeth Olsen); Bud (Don Cheadle), a mentally disturbed black man who is obsessed with the dead,is a gravedigger who claims to see and talk to the dead and Clem (Jim Sturgess), the town drunkard. During the night, a masked posse of men wreck havoc throughout the settlement. Fearing for their safety as the massacre progresses, the prisoners demand to be released, but the sheriff refuses. The following morning, the sheriff, amused by Stubby's ways, allows them to leave town, pointing them to an abandoned wagon as their means of transportation. The sheriff also tells them that the massacre was all his idea to reclaim the town from lawlessness.
The four released convicts decide to travel together, and Stubby takes a liking to Bunny. As they travel, aiming to his the next big town over 200 miles away, a friendship develops between the four people. During their first stop for the night, Bunny reveals that she's eight months pregnant, having gotten knocked up by a client in Salt Flat and has been hiding it with oversized dresses. The following day, the four have an encounter with a group of Christian missionaries where Stubby has Bunny pose as his wife.
Among these missionaries there is Rebecca (Camilla Belle), a blind girl with her inseparable dog Billy. Rebecca tells Stub to be careful because there is a very dangerous band and many travelers have been killed by it.Stub and Bunny try to convince Rebecca to join them for the trip but the girl politely refuses and says she has to go and get her father back to a rather distant city.
Afterwards, the four's idyll is interrupted by appearance of a Mexican sharpshooter called Chaco (John Leguizamo). Despite initial suspicious, he is welcomed into the group. Chaco displays his shooting skills by shooting rabbits and ducks for their meal for the night. But he shows a sinister side when the group is attacked by three posse members from Salt Flat, and Chaco gleefully shoots all three of them, and sadistically tortures the one surviving posse member. That evening, Chaco persuades the group to take peyote with him. Stubby, secretly spits out the hallucinogenic cactus, suspicious alerted, but the rest of the party accepts. Chaco then amuses himself with Clem, humiliating the drug-addled alcoholic by ordering that he crawl and bark like a dog for some liquor. When Stubby attempts to make a run for it, Chaco subdues him and ties up the four travelers at gunpoint.In the night Bunny is raped and beaten. Stubby swears to kill Chaco one day if he survives. The evil bandit then rides off on the wagon with all their gear, leaving them tied up in the desert, except for Clem who he shoots in the leg. Clem frees the others and they continue their trek on foot. As Clems wound worsens, Stubby is forced to remove the bullet and he and Bud carry him on a makeshift stretcher. Later, the group comes upon the aftermath of another attack by Chaco and two henchmen. The Christian wagoners,Rebecca, children and all, have all been slaughtered.
The group's journey continues. Eventually the four friends see buildings ahead. The arrive in a small town in the pouring rain, but discover that it's a ghost town. The following morning is bright and sunny. Bud is ecastic when he discovers a graveyard full of friends to talk to. That evening, Clem gets more sicker from the infection of his wound. But he makes dying request that Stubby and Bunny to get married. The couple profess their love for one another and they kiss for the first time. The next morning, the couple decide to leave the ghost town. Bud elects to stay behind having learned to hunt animals for food. But Stubby and Bunny discover Clems mutilated dead body and learn that Bud has taken a liking to cannibalism as well. Stubby and Bunny leave Bud and his 'city of the dead' and head on out.
A little later, the couple run into another one of Stubby's old acquaintances, the pseudo-Reverend Sullivan (Gary Cole). Stopping for the night, they talk about Stubby's past before Sullivan broke away to join a parish. But then Bunny begins to go into labor, and Sullivan recommends that they take her to the nearest town for medical treatment, which is Altaville located deep in the mountains. The next morning, the group arrives in Altaville which as Sullivan puts it, "a strange town." Altaville is a tiny, snow-covered settlement populated entirely by men, ranging from outlaws to social outcasts. After initial resentment to these outsiders in their community, the men of Altaville become excited at the prospect of a birth in their settlement, and betting commences on the gender of the baby. Celebrations break out at the sound of the baby's cries and learning that it's a boy, but once again tragedy strikes as Bunny goes into seizures and dies from internal bleeding. Stubby is heartbroken. The village doctor , Ray (Michael Rapaport), who delivered the baby recognizes Stubby's ambivalent feelings towards it, and persuades him to leave the child in the care of the men of Altaville.
After Bunny's funeral, and following it,Stubby agrees to let the men of the town raise the child. The next day, Stubby is given a horse, a gun, some supplies, food and water, says goodbye to the men of Altaville, and rides.
Stubby passed by an abandoned ranch and discovers that Chaco is there after seeing the Salt Flat wagon, which enables Stubby to finally seek his vengeance. Stubby sneaks into the disused barn and surprises the Mexican bandit and his two henchmen by shooting the sleeping bandit in the arm and kills his two henchmen. Stubby then reclaims his luggage and his shaving kit which he immediately uses to give himself a shave. When Chaco spits at Stubby, calling him a coward for shooting him without warning, Stubby replies that a poker player never issues warnings. Chaco, evil to the last, then taunts him about the death of Bunny. Stubby finally shoots the villainous Mexican dead. Alone once again, Stubby rides off into the evening sunset. At the last minute, a stray dog, Billy, joins him on his way.
No comments:
Post a Comment