Bullet Points: Bone Tomahawk
What kind of world do we live in that it took me over three years to watch a movie called Bone Tomahawk? I feel ashamed, embarrassed, and downright silly to have not devoted the 2+ hours necessary to take in a movie with such a stellar title. I just hope the content is worthy of the name.
Synopsis: In the dying days of the old west, an elderly sheriff and his posse set out to rescue their town’s doctor from cannibalistic cave dwellers.
- Foreign Object!: Former World Heavyweight Champion David Arquette opens the film by slicing the throat of some passerby on the roads outside of an Old West town. Veteran bad guy Sid Haig is running around with David and you just know they’re in for some villainy when that guy around. Has Sid ever not looked 80?
- The Shine: Where Bone Tomahawk most shines is with the dialogue. To go one further, it would have to be the actors and the way they deliver that dialogue. We are casually introduced to the main characters as Sheriff Hunt (Kurt Russell), his backup deputy Chicory (Richard Jenkins), and local injured cowboy Arthur (Patrick Wilson) all find reasons to get involved with the story. It’s a simple one, too. Arquette and his incursions on a Native burial site have left him with a target on his back and it just so happens that when the Natives come to collect, they force the other members of the town into action.
- Blink and you’ll miss him: So cool to see James Tolkan playing piano in the saloon even if it was only for a few seconds.
- Russell-isms: Kurt Russell is just so damned cool. He could take the Classified pages of The Chillicothe Gazette and make them sound interesting. His delivery and timing are out of this world good and his turn here as Sheriff Hunt is just magical to watch. He has a couple of lines that would sound stupid coming from another actor but sound fantastic and believable coming from him.
- Off to save the day: Sheriff Hunt, Chicory, Arthur, and a gunfighter named Brooder (Matthew Fox) all ride off to rescue Arthur’s wife and the deputy taken by the Native tribe. This isn’t a normal Native American tribe, though. These guys are grotesque looking cannibal cave dwellers. Feel free to use that as your next Death Metal band name but know that it comes with some serious assumptions that you will also be insanely brutal!
- Captivity ain’t for me: Most of the film is the group making their way into mountains to find the prisoners and when they get there you will be on the edge of your seat. We get a glimpse of what life is like in the tribe and how they’ve been treating the lovely Doctor, played by Lilli Simmons, and young Deputy Nick (Evan Jonigkeit). Let’s just say it makes John Rambo’s time in captivity look like a weekend at Disney.
- There’s no easy way out: Yeah, it’s an amazing song from an amazing movie soundtrack, but it also describes the situation that the group find themselves in. By the conclusion of the film, you’ll be so filled with suspense that no ending will ever really wrap the movie up perfectly. It’s great to see characters who remember to think their way out of trouble instead of always trying to shoot their way out. I can’t say enough about the performances as the movie begins to wind down. You’ll just have to watch it yourself.
The Verdict: Bone Tomahawk can be hard to watch at times but it’s also very hard to stop watching. I made the mistake of starting this movie very late at night and it so drew me in with the mysteriousness of the characters and story that I just couldn’t turn it off. Kurt Russell belongs in a Western like Chris Farley belongs at a buffet. His line delivery is just so good. Most of the film is just dialogue between the characters so I can’t say enough about the script written by S. Craig Zahler. He seems to have developed some negative press in the Hollywood realm but a day doesn’t go by without hearing about some weird shit going on there. Zahler’s first three films have been both brutal, and brutally original works. You can’t say that his future will be boring, and despite the amount of dialogue, Bone Tomahawk definitely isn’t.
