The Gunslingers

• Directed by David Oxsen
• June 11, 2009 (US)

A bounty hunter gets caught in a hunt for hidden gold connected to a mysterious map.

Ever watch a movie that is of such cheapness and poor quality that it hurts your psyche and wounds the soul? Such is the case (or almost anyway) with the (almost) no budget 2009 Western The Gunslingers. I finished this film a wounded soul with a part of me having died while watching.

This is not the first cheap Western I have discussed here nor will it be the last. A small budget is not equivalent to a bad experience. Some movies of limited resources I have viewed have overcome their weaknesses while others have had so many issues surmounting Everest in Bermuda shorts and high heels would be easier. This is so bad it even nerfed its ending.

There is a climactic (and I use that term loosely) confrontation between the sides in a cave and some of those shots look like they are composited. Is that the right word? The background works like a poorly added Teams filter rather than the actual environment where other elements of that very scene are filmed.

Not that such weakness for The Gunslingers is confined to there. There are a lot of lazy computer graphics in this movie. Cheap computer blood sprays and I’m pretty sure muzzle flashes are fake as well. There’s something to be said for caps and blood squibs. The muzzle flash is more realistic and even if you can see what burst squibs still look better than the fake mist of computers. 

Director David Oxsen appears to have been enamored with shaky or what can be described as a bobbing zoom. Such things were once en vogue in crappy music videos or kids programming to keep the sugar addled young viewers engaged. Mix that with Dutch angles in tight shots and you as a viewer get annoyed fast because what is on screen becomes visually incomprehensible.

There is something to be said for a steady camera. Not fixed so that it cannot move but one that doesn’t get so unstable it is hard to watch the film. There needs to be an idea of what’s going on. In their effort to hide limited production values, they confuse and annoy anyone watching.

I am unable to discern any real plot beyond ‘get gold’. There is the idea of an outline of a plot. This is filled with random characters showing up with little explanation or payoff and story developments that come out of nowhere. Nothing much stands out about the individuals making dialogue quite interchangeable.

Several actors are doing voices over using natural speaking voices. In a place like the Wild West known for its colorful characters (some of whom traveled from the far corners of the Earth to get there) an unusual voice or accent would work. Something done like it was for a cartoon not really.

At 90 something minutes The Gunslingers felt a lot longer than that. I never had the hint something was about to happen or something was happening. Despite some of the characters clearly not knowing others they all acted like they were familiar with each other if you understand what I’m saying. The film couldn’t decide if they were complete strangers or somehow known to one another. Was this due to poor script supervision or poor characterization? This came so very close to being one of the movies I started watching and gave up on completely to the point I didn’t even write about it. 

It does its best to be complex and entertainingly convoluted but either the director was reaching beyond his grasp or reaching beyond the budget. Or both. That and the cast of characters involved in the hunt for gold are not well performed by those on screen one would assume to be actors.

The story starts out as a few factions looking for some gold which is a basic premise that can yield entertainment. Then it takes a turn to the supernatural completely out of left field. Turns out the second gang of baddies is led by some guy that sounds a whole heck of a lot like he might be the devil. They certainly do their best to give him an otherworldly feel. His face is barely shown in the film with weird angles. What is this movie? But he gets disposed of with a few bullets and dynamite.

I found myself underwhelmed and eventually bored with The Gunslingers. The best part of the movie was when it ended because it just didn’t click. It was a tried-and-true idea the people making the movie didn’t know how to use. Just don’t watch it.