Spidersecu Don't Believe the Hype

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

tbssic Sadly the least I could give this (film?) was one star. Had there been anything less, I'd have clicked it. I've seen every cowboy ever made and this is right up there with the worst.The best part of the movie was that a lot of it was so dark that I couldn't see what was happening. I understand that dimming the lights is supposed to set the mood but,,,, total darkness??? It was so dark that the plot was also hidden from view. I've seen the sepia thing done before, especially interior shots, to try to give the film a period, old time, down and out, depressed look but in this case, it came off as if it was a copycat move and pressing to make up for a lack of,,, everything a good movie should have. There may have been some good scenery shots but any parts of the movie that you could actually see, looked as if they were all shot on a foggy day, 10 minutes before sundown. The scenes jumped around so much that I couldn't make any connection. And the individual scenes were filled with,,,, filler; unrelated, irrelevant, clock eating junk. In all honesty, I watched only 45 minutes and I had absolutely no idea what it was about. There was no suspense, no drama, no continuity, no plot, nothing to keep me watching.I know nothing at all about anyone connected with this movie, except Buck Taylor, so they may all be first timers. The production quality, sets and costumes were all pretty good. The acting, direction, editing and camera could use a bit of work but wasn't bad. It was easy to see that there was a lot of effort but,,, without light bulbs and a story,,, it was all for naught. I think they all should give it another try, but for God's sake,, next time,, wait for a story. See: Shane, High Noon, Unforgiven, The Tall T, Hondo.....

zardoz-13 Writer & Director Tanner Beard's western "The Legend of Hell's Gate: An American Conspiracy" boasts terrific scenery, evocative photography, atmospheric settings, and some fair acting by a motley crew of character actors and television thespians. Unfortunately, this dreary, low-budget oater wanders all over the range and lacks central dramatic focus. The characters are drawn with all the depth of a sketch, and the obstacles that they encounter seem more annoying than challenging. The story concerns three desperadoes who find themselves on foot in the wilderness after they shoot their mounts. They're lugging several jugs of stolen moonshine whiskey as they struggle to elude a posse as well as a mountain man. Nothing remotely memorable occurs in this PG-13 survival of the fittest yarn. Outlaw Will Edwards (Eric Balfour of "Skyline"), small-time railroad thief James McKinnon (Tanner Beard), and a conniving youngster named Kelly (Lou Taylor Pucci) evade a posse on horseback and commandeer a boat that belongs to a mountain man (Jim Beaver) who has just loaded it up with furs and whiskey. Later, this trio of ill-fated fugitives stumbles onto a camp of Native Americas and get them drunk so they can appropriate their one and only horse. Edwards and McKinnon leave Kelly behind as they strike out on their own. Meanwhile, a man who claims to be John Wilkes Booth (Henry Thomas of "E.T.") lies dying in a small Texas town. While he tries to convince a man that he is Abraham Lincolon's assassin, Kelly ransacks his room and steals all his memorabilia. Chiefly, the characters lack charisma, and Beard never generates any suspense and tension about their pursuit. The film concludes on a historical note about the actual story behind Hell's Gate, but even a last-minute history lesson cannot salvage this outdoor adventure is hopeless forgettable.

swimtwobirds Some 15 years ago I wrote a piece 'eBooks: the future of storytelling' in which I speculated on how technological advance changes the way stories are told, indeed, changes the stories themselves. Amongst other then rather fanciful prophecies I foretold a device which would project odour to accompany a movie story. Now I see that this has at last become a reality; at least, this Hell's Gate really does smell - like an overused outhouse on a hot summer's day.Any movie is a story; and a story must be coherent; this is not. Satyricon is not; it is a pastiche – but it took a genius like Fellini to get away with it. That Hollywood will spend millions on CG and explosions while at the same time keeping the writers' bill down in the thousands, and that begrudged, is well known. But for the rising indie, the rebel who seeks to displace the big guys, hopefully by artistic skill and quality, to produce a story based on a script jotted on the back of an old envelope is not the way to go. Your job is to tell a coherent story; do it with all of the ornamentation you can add, but never so much that its coherence is lost, or even threatened.Scripts comprise actions and dialogue; there was plenty of action in this movie, some of it even meaningful, but of dialogue – well? Were we witnessing a new trend in movie-making, the all-ad-libbed attention addler? Could the 'talent' not remember their lines? Did they know what 'articulation' and 'enunciation' mean? Or could the handi- cams not pick up their voices? Not enough interest to do a few voice loops in post-prod? If Shakespeare had written a grunt for Hamlet to recite instead of 'To be or not to be' and the next 20 lines, the world of theatre would be a poorer place; yet this malodourous malevolence of a movie apparently seeks to promote the grunt as mankind's last word in oral articulation and verbal communication. The grunt, while having the merit of brevity, does lack specificity. Another element required of a story is that its audience relates to it – they relate to the characters. Often audiences relate to the guy they see on the screen – the actor – instead of to the character; but that's Hollywood for you, either way those bozos make money. Indies don't have Cruises or Schwarzneggers in their budgets; but they can cast an actor into a suitable part and support that actor into dressing out and projecting the character, and its development, if they have the skill. Mr Beard, why didn't you do that?With camera tripods so affordable, and good liquor so dear, how come the decision to use camerapersons apparently afflicted with the shakes and the staggers?And what was the dreadfully delivered Oirish accent all about? Thousands of very talented Irish in the world (meself, for example), all with accents, many with acting skills, eager for a chance, and you have to offend an entire nation by putting this gratuitous foulness into your 'script'? Of course, since there is so little else in the script, perhaps the multi-talent-free 'writer', 'director' and (of course) his own 'leading man' felt obliged to put something in – anything! I suppose he called it 'color', or 'character' when he was begging dad-in-law for the backing. I think the whole movie was best epitomised by the shoot-out scene in the bar and outside it – 'full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.' While we may be amused at the great waste of gunpowder as against the minimal resulting carnage – how very opposed to Hollywood is this! – we are ultimately not engaged because we have no idea who these people are, or why they are doing this – and so we frankly don't care. Which is the single most telling aspect of this movie that you project, Mr Beard: we don't care, most likely because you didn't.Yet it's not a total loss; what merit came through incites me to say that I hope you try again.

Tony Heck "My name is not St. Helens, my name John Booth the assassin of Abraham Lincoln." Just outside Possum Kingdom Lake in Texas there is a cliff formation that is known as Hell's Gate. During the 1870's this place was home to notorious outlaws and crimes. When a young boy overhears a conversation involving the local bartender he thinks he found a way to get rich. He teams with two strangers in order to make it rich and famous. Being a huge history buff this movie seemed very interesting to me. It says based on a true story, but I'm not sure how accurate this actually is. I have been saying that the western genre has really fallen off in the last ten years. This one is still a definite B western, but it is much much better then most of the recent ones. The acting is iffy at best but the story keeps you watching and I was actually surprised at how much I was enjoying it. Overall, not a bad western at all. Very watchable and pretty entertaining. I give it a B.