Heart of the Gun

• Written and Directed by Travis Mills
• December 18, 2021 (US)

A former cavalry doctor rescues a woman during a wagon attack while he searches for his missing wife.

From the start Heart of the Gun gives the viewer a mysterious woman (Sarah played by Amber Rose Mason) and a mysterious man (Jack Travers played by John Marrs) together under mysterious circumstances in a mysterious setting. What a mystery! It right away dispels any hopes you might have that this will be exciting or grand or adventurous and that is not because it is clearly done on a limited budget. These characters look concerned and depressed.

This was part of (and the last one in) a series of films by Travis Mills called 12 Movies In 12 Months and that mass production by one director really shows. The acting is borderline amateur with the pace very slow. Long and depressing speeches are mistaken for drama. Things that happen feel a bit contrived.

This right away goes for deep and dark, keeping the cast small and the camera tight with just enough production values to demonstrate this is indeed set in the Old West. The level of gray that pops on screen from time to time would probably make Zach Snyder consider a lawsuit for trademark infringement. Movies are not supposed to look overcast the whole time!

There’s a lot of deep sounding dialogue as these people go into their personal pain accompanied by a melancholy if not downright depressing musical arrangement. As with most modern Westerns these are really damaged people that just so happen to come across each other. Perhaps it was too early in history for psychological therapy of some type but maybe go talk to a friend and unload a little. Eventually more damaged characters join the story until you come to realize the mentally damaged are running things.

Sarah finds her way from one broken person to another with each always uttering deep sounding and borderline philosophical speeches with all helmed by actors that should be in supporting roles and not main roles. I am not trying to insult those in the movie. Not everybody can be a main player in a story. Some have the skills to help others shine and that might be the case here.

What Heart of the Gun goes for intentionally or not is downbeat and soul crushing. Both can be quite good when handled appropriately. Certain films can crush your soul but still be good. This movie just doesn’t do that. This just crushes your soul. The characters wallow in their damage while engaging in moments of self-pity. The more I think about it the more I think this is not a modern interpretation of the genre but a modern expression of the self-centered nature of many far too many writers in general.

Maybe my issues are because it is a story about the writer’s own feelings rather than a story that’s relatable to all drawn from the writer’s feelings. A fine line and a difficult distinction to make but one is vastly more relatable and even if it’s depressing is not going to leave you feeling like crap. The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance or even News of the World make connections because they touch on portions of the human experience we can all understand over the particular experiences of one person.

On the surface the presentation looks like some studio effort to show they can be artful. It has all the trappings of something that should be praised by critics. Once you think about it you realize just how crap it all really is.

Heart of the Gun is just not worth ANY amount of time. It is slow and boring with the nature of the presentation making the character motivations unrelatable and not very interesting to watch.