cinema history class: bone tomahawk (2015)

The session: "Bring Your Own Movie Month"
Our annual session in which each of us in the class takes a turn sharing a movie of his choice.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: Bone Tomahawk (2015)
                (Ethan's pick)
Directed by S. Craig Zahler

My Impressions Going In:
I had neither seen nor heard of this movie before Ethan started talking about bringing it to Keith's. Based on the way he talked about it as being brutally violent and the fact that he loves the Saw movies, I was figuring on unrelenting violence.

Plot:
After three townsfolk (well, two townsfolk and a drifter) are kidnapped, a rescue party goes searching for them

Reaction and Other Folderol:

Based on the buildup from Ethan, I was expecting an evening of unremitting painfully violent imagery. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong.

That said, BT is extremely violent. The mood is set quickly -- the first scene is of a violent ambush, shown up close and personal. And the whole sequence before the opening credits -- almost a prologue -- sets the tone with its tension and violence. But BT isnt simply one long gorefest. There isn't the feeling, as with the Saw movies, that this is violence for its own sake. The violence here is in service of telling the story. And it's actually used sparingly enough that I, the viewer, had a chance to catch my breath. And, for most of the movie, the suspense and sense of foreboding do a slow build, leading to a rewarding climax.

There were some comments about this movie being overlong. And I guess I can understand. It does clock in at over two hours. So it could have been trimmed without losing any crucial narrative. But I didn't mind the length. The suspense built in such a way that I was never thinking about time. The movie had an almost epic quality, driven by the wide open feel of the desert as portrayed for much of the story.

It's amazing to me that this movie flew under the radar.  

Ratings

Me: 10
Bob-O: 9.8
Christina: 9.85
Dave: 9.5

Joe: 10
Keith: 9.5