2/5 Stars
I didn't like this movie. It is an entertaining enough Western, till the last 20 minutes where it goes off the rails. Kurt Russell does his best to hold it all together, but the director is more interested in shock-value and gratuitous violence than just telling a solid narrative.
Kurt's deputy is miscast. Too old, too fumbling, and too bumbling at this point in his life to think he could take up a career as a law man. It is almost like he is there for comic relief, but the movie doesn't need it. He is distracting and feels out of place from the beginning.
Cripple Husband. They conveyed quite well how bad of shape he was in. It looked like a compound fracture that was maybe a week or two old? I can buy his urgency and insistence on going out with them, until the point that he loses his horse and re-breaks his leg. That is not something you just sleep on and then continue to soldier on. The injury is too severe for the circumstances of the story. Just have him start with a badly sprained ankle and go from there. It is at least plausible.
Matthew Fox's character is baffling. Who is he? Why is he putting himself in the middle of this story and the danger. To start, his motivations were, "well I was in the wrong spot at the wrong time, so I am liable now for those people." Ok, that is some weak motivation, but maybe he is the Good Samaritan type? Nope... he is an asshole that makes it quite clear he doesn't care for anyone but himself. Then, as the story plays out, we find out that is it quite simple. He just hate Indians and wants to kill as many as he can. It reeks of a bullshit contrived story. If he is as good a hunter as we are led to believe that he is, he wouldn't want anything to do with this suicide mission, where is riding mates are a cripple, a senile old man, and an over-zealous marshal.
Why is the nurse lady holding it together so well? She got kidnapped by cannibals, saw them brutally murder and eat one of her fellow captives, and she seems to have all her mental faculties quite in order. She doesn't even seem that scared of these "man-beast-cannibals".
That leads me to the cannibals. I am quite certain they are men. But, if they are men, why can they howl like some unearthly demons? Sure, it is unnerving and scary, but either your story is grounded in reality or it isn't.
The "scene"... I bet the director made this entire movie just so he could get his rocks off on making the one "scene". It is repulsive and it defines the whole movie. Good job bro! You made something horrific and disgusting. Good job by you!