Jane Got a Gun **½ (2016, Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor, Noah Emmerich, Rodrigo Santoro, Boyd Holbrook, Sam Quinn) – Movie Review

Natalie Portman stars as Jane Hammond, who desperately asks her ex-lover Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton) for help in order to save her outlaw husband Bill ‘Ham’ (Noah Emmerich) from an evil gang out to kill him. But Frost is eaten up with bitterness, says he won’t help and tells her to saddle up: ‘When I finally found you, seeing you holding another man’s child, I knew you weren’t mine no more and that did something to me that the war never could.’

A virtually unrecognisable Ewan McGregor relishes playing the head villain, John Bishop. It’s amazing the difference a dodgy moustache can make to a man’s face!

It’s a simple, straightforward, old-fashioned Western coming along just when you though they were dead, though Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight (2015) and Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s The Revenant (2015) have been trying to keep the formula alive. To succeed they have to offer something a bit special, that little bit more, preferably with epic status. Jane Got a Gun doesn’t.

It is enjoyable, but its shortish 98 minute running time feels flimsy, and indeed it’s a thin yarn. Maybe this is expecting too much. Westerns always had slim and predictable stories, with archetypical, usually vengeful or haunted or hunted characters. That’s exactly what you get here. If you like old-style Westerns, you like Jane Got a Gun.

It has a great extended shoot-out climax, excitingly staged. Both giving impressive portraits in true grit and determination, Portman and especially Edgerton are absolutely first rate, pulling you into their characters’ emotional drama. The multi flashbacks are messy but that’s probably the only way they could have told the all-important back-story. They don’t get in the way.

It’s gripping, involving and even a little bit scary – and tautly and imaginatively directed by Gavin O’Connor (Warrior, Pride and Glory). It does capture the true West look and flavour. It’s an intimate, confiding, heartfelt Western, with a smallish cast and a smallish feel. That is fine, but we need more. It just needed to go the extra mile.

O’Connor stepped in at the last minute to replace director Lynne Ramsay, who left the movie after clashing with producers just before cameras were set to roll. Joel Edgerton lent a hand in rewriting the script and swapped roles, going from villain (which went to McGregor) to hero. It is greatly in its favour that it doesn’t show the scars of its troubled production.

Also in the cast are Rodrigo Santoro as Fitchum, Boyd Holbrook as Vic Owen and Sam Quinn as Slow Jeremiah.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Movie Review derekwinnert.com