Trashtacular

The Western—a genre once rooted in unspoken codes and existential sweat, where violence had gravity and redemption came at the price of a soul—has, with Gunslingers, been exhumed and sent staggering, blank-eyed, into the realm of accidental comedy. Brian Skiba, whose résumé reads more like a warning label than a track record, invites us to Redemption (the film’s town, not its trajectory). Make no mistake: there is no redemption here—except, perhaps, for Nicolas Cage, whose presence is less a saving grace than a feverish hallucination trapped in a desert heatwave.

If ever there was a “fever dream” of the American biopic, Derek Estlin Purvis’ The Ballad of Davy Crockett is it. But don’t expect psychotropic colors or a narrative that flares and fizzes. No, this is the sort of celluloid nightmare where you wander through soggy wilderness for ninety minutes without a compass—except, perhaps, for the one lost somewhere on the cutting-room floor.