Control Nathan Rabin 4.0 #241 Gunslinger's Revenge (1998)
Welcome, friends, to the latest entry in Control Nathan Rabin 4.0. It’s the career and site-sustaining column that gives YOU, the kindly, Christ-like, unbelievably sexy Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place patron, an opportunity to choose a movie that I must watch, and then write about, in exchange for a one-time, one hundred dollar pledge to the site’s Patreon account. The price goes down to seventy-five dollars for all subsequent choices.
Or you can be like four kind patrons and use this column to commission a series of pieces about a filmmaker, actor or television show. I’m deep into a project on the films of the late, great, fervently mourned David Bowie and I have now watched and written about every movie Sam Peckinpah made over the course of his tumultuous, wildly melodramatic psychodrama of a life and career. That’s also true of the motion pictures and television projects of the late Tawny Kitaen.
A generous patron is now paying me to watch and write about the cult animated show Batman Beyond and I’m deep into a look at the complete filmography of troubled former Noxzema pitch-woman Rebecca Gayheart. Oh, and I’m delving deep into the filmographies of Oliver Stone and Virginia Madsen for you beautiful people as well.
As we are all too aware, David Bowie’s filmography has more than its share of head-scratchers, choices things that make you go hmmm. Over the course of this curious journey one question has popped up time and time again: for the love of all that is righteous and holy, what is David Bowie doing in this cockamamie movie?
We found ourselves asking that question in regards to Bowie’s appearance in Just a Gigolo. And Yellowbeard. And The Linguini Incident. Bowie’s regal presence in Everybody Loves Sunshine AKA B.U.S.T.E.D similarly had us baffled and bewildered.
Then there’s Mr. Rice’s Secret, Arthur and the Invisibles, August and Bandslam. If you know what could have possibly motivated an all-time rock God like Bowie to appear in those stinkers let me know because I honestly do not have a clue. Did he lose a bet? Do the producers possess blackmail material on him?
I hope you all have your asking hats on because we’re going to once again ask the eternal question, “What is David Bowie doing in this stupid movie?” In regards to 1998’s Gunslinger’s Revenge.
Gunslinger’s Revenge is a puzzling choice for a legend like Bowie in that it doesn’t even seem like a real movie but rather a lazy parody of a Western title or the name of something on Troy McClure’s resume.
Gunslinger’s Revenge reunites Bowie with his Last Temptation of Christ costar Harvey Keitel but the circumstances are not just different but antithetical. Martin Scorsese’s incendiary masterpiece was a powerful and profound exploration of faith and doubt. Gunslinger’s Revenge, in sharp contrast, is some generic-ass western bullshit so standard-issue it ought to come in a plain brown paper bag.
Bowie doesn’t even appear in Gunslinger’s Revenge until forty-five minutes in but his scenery-chewing turn as a drawling badass briefly but unmistakably rouses the film from its lazy stupor and injects a desperately needed explosion of personality, energy and star power.
Like many of the films he appeared in, Bowie is far and away the best thing about Gunslinger’s Revenge. Unfortunately but not surprisingly, he’s also the only redeeming facet of what is otherwise almost perversely undistinguished, a profoundly forgettable endeavor except for Bowie’s presence.
Gunslinger’s Revenge takes place in 1860, in the fictional small town of Basin Field and is narrated by Jeremiah (Yudii Mercedi), the precocious half-Native American, half-white son of Doc Lowen (Italian filmmaker and writer Leonardo Pieraccioni).
Jeremiah is cursed to live in a bland theme park version of an Old West town, complete with such stock figures as the Beautiful Town Prostitute who inspires feelings of both romance and lust among the menfolk, the comic relief Drunk/Village Idiot, the gentle town doctor and a Native American tribe.
The annoying boy’s life changes forever with the arrival of another stock figure from Western mythology: the man of violence who has turned his back on his old ways and become a pacifist.
In a surprisingly sleepy, underwhelming performance, a star-turn weirdly devoid of star-power, Keitel plays that man of violence, Johnny Lowen, a once-feared and respected gunslinger who reconnects with a son he abandoned long ago and bonds with his adoring grandchild.
Gunslinger’s Revenge is ostensibly a comedy but it is weighted down throughout by a deeply unnecessary and unwelcome element of gooey sentimentality. There’s simply not much to these bland iterations of Western archetypes but that does not keep the movie from slathering on the sappy strings in a cynical and wholly unsuccessful attempt to trick us into thinking that what we’re watching is poignant and powerful and not just barely a movie.
Johnny is just settling into his new life as a father, grandfather and man of peace when the nefarious Jack Sikora (Bowie) swaggers into town with his entourage in tow and challenges him to a duel.
Jack has spent the last year tracking Jonny Lowen down for the purpose of killing him in a gunfight so he isn’t about to let his enemy’s retirement keep him from attaining the sweet, sweet revenge he lives for.
Gunslinger’s Revenge has absolutely nothing going for it for its first forty-five minutes. Then Bowie shows up looking sexy, lean and half-mad in skin-tight western wear and speaking in the world’s thickest Southern drawl and the movie absolutely comes alive.
It’s a trip hearing Bowie even attempt a Southern accent. Bowie really throws himself into the character’s depravity. He plays the movie’s larger than life heavy as a feral beast of a man, a threat to respectable womenfolk everywhere and a demented villain who luxuriates in his own evil.
Bowie’s revenge-hungry gun-slinger terrorizes children. He threatens women. He stalks and taunts and challenges a man who only wants to live out his days in peace.
Bowie is enormous fun but he’s also in the movie for maybe fifteen minutes. This is a movie that David Bowie is in, bizarrely but incontrovertibly enough, but it most assuredly is not a David Bowie movie.
Heck, I imagine that a lot of Bowie fans don’t even know this movie exists. I suspect that if they choose to satiate their curiosity about his role here they will be just as bewildered and underwhelmed by everything surrounding Bowie’s performance but wildly entertained by his scenery-chewing.
This might just be one of those cases where a Youtube video of Bowie’s handful of scenes gives you all you need out of Gunslinger’s Revenge. I would usually say that reducing a movie to its most notable moments insults the filmmakers’ creative vision but here they have no real vision to disrespect.
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