Catch the Bullet

• Directed by Michael Feifer
• September 10, 2021

A U.S. marshal in the Old West returns home from the trail to discover his son has been kidnapped by a group of outlaws.

Why do I try with newer Westerns? The good ones that I come across are rare. Catch the Bullet tries to be a very soft revisionist Western on a very low budget. We have a widowed absentee father who runs the local territory bringing in bad guys to support his family and his son who’s bitter because of that. Aside from an exceedingly geriatric Tom Skerritt this is no different than a half dozen other slightly better budgeted movies.

Marshal Dad (Jay Pickett)-his name does not matter-has pissed off an outlaw who after escaping from prison has gathered up his old gang and decided to hunt the marshal down. Not finding the marshal waiting patiently at home he kidnaps his son to lure the marshal on a long and mostly unnecessary trek cross-country into some vaguely defined trap that I don’t think he really gets. Main baddie talks like he has an idea of what he’s doing, but it comes off more like he’s making it up as he goes along if you observe things.

He wants to kill the marshal who is not home so why not just wait? Why go meandering around the countryside leaving no clues to lure the marshal into his trap? He does not even leave a hint he was behind it. How does simply riding into dangerous Sioux territory do that? It certainly adds an element of danger as well as a potential for a gunfight, but it makes no sense to me. What did I miss?

There are some pretty good elements in this. There is real potential here to make a really good film. These are not irredeemably terrible people, but just damaged individuals in a scenario that could be an intense game of cat and mouse. The thing is the acting is poor despite quality direction with a good script. The best performer in all of this is Peter Facinelli and despite being on the thumbnail that I saw he’s not in this much at all leaving all the other actors to try to polish this turd.

The story is about the dad and son coming together. I’m not exactly how this necessarily fixes relations between father and son though. If dad hadn’t been out hunting down criminals and hauling them off to jail son will never been kidnapped and his friend would still be alive and grandpa would never have taken a bullet in the shoulder.

I don’t see at what point son necessarily comes to understand his dad. Dad only comes to realize he needs to be around a little more and maybe that’s the point but at what point does he actually see that? It’s more of a regret than it is “I should do that.”

A pet peeve of mine is serious cleanliness when the characters lead a dirty life. Many of the clothes don’t even look worn. You cannot get away with this level of cleanliness and pristine appearance in a new Western. It just doesn’t look right. They don’t need to look like they haven’t bathed in weeks but the clothes need to look like they’ve been worn a little bit.

And what is with little to no effort given to conceal current elements like double pane glass, modern locks, or electric lighting? The electric lighting is clear during a nighttime flashback because you do not get that level of interior illumination from oil lamps and candles.

It came so close to being okay. I have noted other low budget Westerns on this blog that were good despite their clear financial limitations. This sadly is not one of them. It got lazy.

There are certainly a good elements here but because of limited resources and poor performances Catch the Bullet is significantly less than it could’ve been. I certainly won’t watch it again. I think you can skip it.