Blackthorn: Movie Review

Blackthorn: Movie Review

Cast: Sam Shepard, Stephen Rea,  Eduardo Noriega
Director: Mateo Gil

Some icons just never go away.

Thus it is with Butch Cassidy, last seen disappearing with the Sundance Kid back on screens in 1969.

But 20 years later in Bolivia, Cassidy resurfaces, an older man and living under the name James Blackthorn and trying to live the quieter life than before.

However, when he hears of Etta Place's death, he decides to end his long exile and head back to the USA to take care of who he believes is his nephew (but is actually his son).

So, withdrawing all his money and packing up on his horse, he heads off.

Yet, of the best laid plans of mice and men, Blackthorn is ambushed by a Spanish mining engineer (Noriega), he loses his horse and his life savings.

With no option but to form an uneasy alliance with the mining engineer, Blackthorn heads off trying to help the Spaniard reclaim money he says has been stolen from the miners.

But the past is catching up to Blackthorn - along with the present...

It's always difficult taking an icon and doing something respectful and yet original with it - and to some degree, Gil manages some of this with Blackthorn.

Mainly thanks to a great performance of weariness, determination and grit by Shepard who turns in a mightily impressive performance in the outlaw character made famous by someone else (namely Paul Newman). Shepard is riveting to watch and would probably rank as a great actor to have in a Western - but I'm not convinced he makes a great Butch Cassidy, simply because of the narrative.

That's not to knock his performance, merely the story around it. I think Blackthorn may have worked slightly better were it not a "what if" piece, examining what happened to Butch Cassidy - unfortunately, you have character and story expectations for such an icon (whether you like to admit it or not).

Gil's crafted a reasonably elegaic and at times, meandering Western, which really would have worked better if it had a little more pace. The start is a bit of a crawl to be frank and it doesn't really go anywhere as Cassidy takes on a Sundance Kid type partner. Sure, there are nods to a previous life along with flashbacks but it's not a showy or flashy western; there's scenes of shooting but they're not action packed. The whole tone is a reflective one for you to lose yourself in. It could have done with a little more oomph and bluster to really suck you into it.

That said, Blackthorn has some truly beautiful landscape shots and scenes shot on the Salt Plains are stunningly good on the eyeballs. And sure, there's the morals of the time and the old days versus the changing world Blackthorn finds himself in - but it's not quite enough. If this were a normal Western without the Butch Cassidy overtones, it would be perfectly watchable - as it is, it brings with it a level of expectation which it can't sustain.

The reason to see this rather odd Western is Sam Shepard - it's a masterclass of acting in a muddle of meandering - chalk this one up - unfortunately - to admirable failure.

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