For A Fistful Of Dollars...You'll Get A Good Probing

There’s two reasons why Jon ‘Iron Man’ Favreau’s latest blockbuster, Cowboys & Aliens, has been met with indifference at the box office and by the critic’s community. One reason is understandable, but which I do not agree with, and with the other reason, they have a point.

1/ First off, audience expectations are not met from a film carrying the title Cowboys & Aliens. With that moniker, you’d expect a knowing, contemporary exploitation flick…a ‘B’ movie in tone, if not in production values. But director Favreau plays it dead straight. This is a western, through and through, with the science fiction aspects of the plot sprinkled on top. It’s shot (gorgeously I might add) like a serious western, is deliberately paced like a serious western and uses humour sparsely like a serious western. In fact, plot wise, this is a version of The Searchers, substituting aliens for Native American Indians. If you go into the film expecting a wacky mash up of Blazing Saddles and Critters you’re in for one hell of a disappointment. If you, like me, go in and take the film at face value…it’s a solid adventure film told in a way that’s respectful to the genres it’s melding.

2/ The other issue is the lack of surprising elements in the plot. Cowboys & Aliens does exactly what it says on the tin. It takes all the familiar tropes of the western genre (gunslinger/man-with-no-name, Indian ceremonies, bar room brawls, cutthroat bandits, lynch mobs and ruthless cattle barons) and mixes them with staples from the alien invasion genre (abductions and experimentation, stealing the earth’s resources, strange lights in the sky and relocating vehicles from the sea to landlocked farmland), but it doesn’t add anything new to the equation. If it wasn’t for some superb, but obvious contemporary CGI, from ILM you’d be mistaken if the story dated from the mid-90’s Independence Day period.

Aside from that the casting is top rate. Daniel Craig brings the same intense masculinity to Jake that he does to James Bond (he’s a hard, hard man), Harrison Ford has found his groove and is never happier than when playing a curmudgeonly anti-hero as he does here, and Olivia Wilde is an enigmatic and beguiling presence. Other great character actors like Clancy Brown and Sam Rockwell have their moments to shine but the script isn’t geared towards an ensemble cast or deep, meaningful dialogue…even if it tries once in a while.

Well made, thoroughly enjoyable (if you go without expectations), but lacking in any boundary pushing story or visuals, Cowboys & Aliens is worth saddling up for.