Bone Tomahawk and Trump's America

Bone Tomahawk is a film pulled in two different directions. Thankfully, unlike one of the film's minor characters, it doesn't all just fall apart at the seams. Instead the film allows for a stage in which dichotomies can be explored in both theme and structure. The Western genre has always been said to be the perfect medium for commenting on the idea of America. The film is all about opposing forces and therefore is the Western for the Trump era. Yes, this review will get mildly political. How exciting.

Early on, in Bone Tomahawk, there are hints of the violence to come, but the movie then settles into a fairly slow-paced drama about four characters crossing the harsh landscape to rescue a couple of kidnapped towns-folk. The toil of their journey is eccentuated when their horses are stolen and they are forced to continue on foot. Director S. Craig Zahler really lets the characters live together in this pressure cooker of an environment and conflicts within the group begin to arise. This section of the film is built on great character actors and lovely dialogue.

Some favourite lines:

This smells like corn.

It's corn chowder.

Oh. Then things are lining up.

You're pretty angry for a guy named Buddy (delivered as though directed by Tarantino)

Why was my husband, the mayor not informed of this situation?

Well the sheriff told me to inform him but I'm old and I forgot.

You expect me to believe that?

I'm hoping.

I know that the world is supposed to be round but I'm not so sure about this part.

Richard Jenkins steals the show as he often does, but Patrick Wilson proves reliable as ever, Kurt Russell rolls in bringing all the swagger with him from his Hateful Eight performance and Matthew Fox (Jack from Lost) is delightful shunning his leading man good looks and stoicism for more characterful roles. But even the supporting cast is filled with great character actors: David Arquette (from Friends, Scream and wrestling) plays a bandit, Fred Malamed brings his great big face to the role of the bartender and Fargo Season 2's Zahn McLaren pops up all too briefly as a civilized Indian.

The man Vs nature elements are heavy throughout but the desert environment proves fertile ground for exploring other conflicts; civil Vs savage, white man Vs Indian, old Vs young, male Vs female, religion Vs atheism, trust Vs doubt, even night Vs day as the group decide to switch to traveling at night once they lose their horses. All of this is probed at through the group's increasingly antagonistic relationships and a couple of outside forces in the raiding party and the hostile environment, but it's all about character.

And then there's the Trogladytes. As with the other dichotomies in the movie the Trogladytes symbolise the force pulling in the opposite direction to the rest of the movie - the classic Western representing the civilization of the frontier. And they're an extreme force. Though glimpsed early in the movie, when they are introduced for the final act they enter suddenly and viciously. The film immediately shifts gear and puts it's foot on the pedal and the brutality continues until the end. The Trogladytes are shown to be animalistic in nature, almost supernatural and with the violence we are left wondering if we are still in the Western genre at all or if things have shifted to a cannibal holocaust movie. Still, all the character foundations laid are paid off, but it's all too visceral at this point to even matter.

It's a shock to the system, but it's the motivating factor for our group of heroes to put their differences aside and unite against a greater 'other' enemy. Sure, nobody in the group seemed to get on with Mr Brooder, and let's be honest he was a bit of a smarmy dickhead (and probably represents modern day Republicans with all his casual and fatal racism and basically calling Patrick Wilson a 'Cuck') but at the end of the day he stood up for the right side and died with the respect of the other men. And what better message to send to America under Trump. It's possible to unite against greater threats. And maybe those threats include tribes that chop off women's arms and legs, blind them, then strap them to a surface but keep them alive so they can be used solely for the purpose of breeding.

Honestly the first time I saw this movie the build up was a bit too slow and the violence was a bit much for me. I told myself that I probably wouldn't be watching it again. But watching it this time, knowing where things were going, I really soaked up the dialogue and interplay between the four leads and the violence came with a more cathartic fun, than the spine-tingling wince I felt the first time round.

S. Craig Zahler's next movie, Brawl in Cell Block 99, featured a swastika tattooed skinhead Vince Vaughn as it's protagonist. It was a slow paced character drama that ends in a final burst of violence. After that he made Dragged Across Concrete, where he cast OG Cancelled Actor Mel Gibson as the protagonist playing a cop sick of bodycams and black lives matter bullshit. Zahler has been written off by many as an alt-right MAGA filmmaker. Personally, I'm gonna paraphrase a friend of mine's review of this movie and call Zahler pretty fucking metal. Yes, his movies do seem to be coming from a right-wing, possibly toxic male viewpoint, but his messages are always about coming together against greater evils and the rest of Hollywood is just virtue signalling liberal elitism at this point anyway, so it's nice to have a change.

4 blind pregnant amputees out of 5