The Bounty Men

• Written and Directed by Brett Bentman
• June 2, 2022 (US)

A militiaman-turned-bounty-hunter rides into an abandoned Texas town seeking his latest bounty who is a powerful war criminal.

After watching I can say The Bounty Men is certainly a movie. At 78 minutes it barely qualifies as a modern one. And it certainly has enough to be an entertaining though not classic Western. But honestly it just never gets quite there.

This is definitely among the lowest of the low budget films. Based on the final product it wouldn’t be a difficult stretch of the imagination to believe there are more people in front of the camera than behind it. But just because it is low budget does not mean it can’t be enjoyed or ais bad. I’ve seen quite a few low budget films since starting this blog that I found rather entertaining. And I’m sure one or two I lamented there low cost preventing them from being more widely embraced. This is not one of them.

These are supposed to be people in the Old West. While I don’t think the clothing needs to be so filthy it is a health hazard, what the actors are wearing looks almost fresh off the rack. It looks like much of it was bought very shortly before this movie went into production. Some of it even looks like modern fashion such as the bounty hunter wearing what appears to be a leather motorcycle jacket. A fancy one but still a leather jacket for bike riding. 

The story takes place in a nearly abandoned town. Aside from female saloon keeper Tellie (Whit Kunschik) who also acts as a barkeep and her nephew there is nobody residing there beyond the villain John Dooling (Tom Zembrod) and his outlaw gang. I could certainly see Dooling hiding out in an abandoned town but why is this woman staying behind? Why didn’t she and her nephew hitch a ride on the last wagon train out of there? The character offers no convincing argument. His whole criminal enterprise focuses on this town with nobody. Huh?

Daniel (Dylan Hobbs) is our bounty hunter. Hobbs-as-Daniel does a bad Eastwood impression and has all the expression of a department store manikin. I understand he’s going for tough but if you don’t blink or emote in some way you come off as android. Eastwood may speak though his teeth but if his character means business it really feels like it.

However Hobbs and everyone else fades into the background when Zembrod as Dooling shows up. I’m not calling him a surprise or revelation, but he’s certainly giving the part his all in comparison to every other performer in The Bounty Men. He is such a scene stealer in comparison to others. I didn’t expect these to be the most polished performers, but I did need everybody to be serviceable. I’m always looking to be entertained. Aside from the villain nobody is serviceable.

There’s plenty of gunplay in this but the blood is all bad CGI. I have no idea how much blood squibs can possibly cost to either purchase or simply make. I do know you can buy them and they are certainly better than CGI. Even the most poorly colored fake blood works better than cheap graphics like you would find in the arcade version of The House of the Dead 2. 

I went into this wanting to be entertained as I do with every other movie. The Bounty Men didn’t quite do that. It went through the motions and failed to get interesting enough for me to even pretend to care. And that’s unfortunate because as I said in the beginning of this it had the stuff to be entertaining but maybe not a classic.

The Bounty Men is one of those low budget films that you can find on Amazon or even YouTube. Wherever you look for it, well, don’t. It may only be 78 minutes of your time but it’s 78 minutes you could spend watching something a little better.