The Age of Commercialism

Don't Believe the Hype

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

Nice, realistic dialogue - quick come backs in the characters' speech makes it realistic to me. They talk like real people, unlike many westerns I've seen. And I do like westerns a lot and have seen many. I like the fact that the action carries much of the story so that dialogue is not even necessary in many parts of the movie. I saw it on both VHS and DVD and the VHS has much better sound to it - I suppose the DVD was duplicated very fast or at a big quantity at a lower quality or whatever, but in any case the sound on the VHS is much, much better. Even the talking is a little harder to understand on the DVD. I like the overall sound, such as the horses and gun shots and how they blend together {especially the VHS version), and again, especially the dialogue in this movie.

A reviewer here (who actually gave this movie 10 stars) pointed out what he saw as two "mistakes" which I personally don't see as mistakes. a. Just my opinion, but he says, "Before Mary-Ann Neff is held at gun point she puts a large board across the door to lock it. Rockwell comes through the same door and the board is gone." I actually saw the board crashing away, in the shot when Rockwell crashed through her door. It looked pretty realistic to me. b. Also is the same reviewer's complaint that Rockwell "comes up with two body-bags in the wilderness." I think the average viewer can surmise pretty easily that he BROUGHT ALONG the body bags, and didn't find them in the wilderness. Why waste film footage showing Rockwell putting body bags into his saddlebag before hunting outlaws? I guess he could have, but it seems to me that would have been a waste of footage. I liked what I saw.

I wasn't expecting much from this low budget film but was looking forward to it all the same. It could have gone either the folklore route or historical route and been incredibly interesting if done at least half-way decent. That is where this goes all wrong. It did nothing except show a guy dressed up as him trying to make tough, thoughtful facial expressions.None of the scenes are personal in any way. There is a guy with a name. Girls have crushes on him. He falls in love with a pretty girl with a pretty dress. We are shown that there are historical characters who were in history. There are shady guys who feel the need to shift shady glances constantly each time they mention the Mormons' property. People shoot at him and he shoots them. Carl Malone is there. All of the time spent tying in a narrator feels convoluted and does nothing to provide insight into the title character.I really don't see how it was possible to write such horrible script and direct such a horrible film when there is so much material to write it off and so many effective, straight-forward methods of telling the story. For instance, the first scene shows some kid's parents get shot. He goes to Joseph Smith's house and sees Rockwell there. Now we know he was a friend of Smith, and we are later told they were friends from childhood. Why not just open by showing Rockwell trying to bust Joseph out of prison? Later we see a reenactment of Smith's assassination, who has been introduced but not developed. This tells us nothing about Rockwell. Also it was hard to not get distracted by the comic mob noises. By now you're getting the idea.Now throw in stale dance scene to give Carl Malone some time on stage. Others have mentioned the play scene. By now we feel like we're being deliberately insulted.The only saving grace, of which there is little, are the scenes and quotes that made Rockwell a legend. The ear collector scene was solid enough. The problem is that at least 80% of the film should be like that, but we get less than 10%.Conclusion: If you have a Mormon grandpa, go camping with him and he'll spin a good Porter Rockwell yarn or two. If you don't, find a good book on him. I'm sure some day there will be an amazing film, too, but this ain't it.

Didn't really like the movie, it seemed pretty anti-climactic. I wonder if any other viewers caught this: In the scene where Karl Malone was in the play, there was a song playing on the piano in the background. The song was "I Am Thinking of my Pickaninny Days" by Scott Joplin. Scott Joplin was not even born until about 1865, therefore, the song was probably not even written till at least 1885 or 1890. I just HAD to tell people that. SoyeahGoodbye.