Gunfighter Paradise review
Guns, Gods and the inevitable.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
Gunfighter Paradise
Directed by Jethro Waters
Written by Jethro Waters
Starring Jessica Hecht, Valient Himself, Braz Cubas, Joel Loftin and Burk Uzzle
Gunfighter Paradise Review
IMDB classifies Gunfighter Paradise as a comedy/horror/mystery. I’m not sure how I would categorize it…but those wouldn’t be the words I’d use. Dark satire, perhaps? So, the comedy part can stay…but don’t expect set-ups and punchlines. As for the horror part…well…the scariest thing about Gunfighter Paradise is how sure I am that the people it targets won’t realize it’s a satire at all. Which, to be fair, is downright terrifying. Gunfighter Paradise targets aspects of American culture that is certainly ripe for it. But they’re also comprised of people with absolutely zero sense of humor.
When I mention aspects of American culture that are ripe for a takedown…plenty of things can pop into your mind. Greed, gluttony, pride…any of those famous sins could fit the bill. Gunfighter Paradise (fittingly) takes aim at two slightly more specific targets. Guns and religion. And it has a lot to say about both. Perhaps even more fittingly…it allows for multiple interpretations of each.
Stoner (Braz Cubas) returns to his southern home following the death of his mother. With his camouflage face paint and a host of strange things surrounding him…Stoner attempts to uncover his mother’s final message to him.
Those “strange things” I mentioned include everything from a suitcase full of money to a pair of civil war reenactors. Gunfighter Paradise gives us everything from a trip to pick up a free couch to a frightening run in with a religious zealot neighbor. Stoner believes in God…and he talks about it often. But he doesn’t believe in the right God according to this particular neighbor. And…everyone has guns, of course.
Like religion, Gunfighter Paradise gives us more than one thing to think about with its guns. Stoner is an expert…at one point giving the audience a remarkably thorough lesson in how to properly, and safely, operate a handgun. But it also spends a fair amount of time early in the film with people around Stoner wondering what he was firing as he shoots out his window. The reenactors carry prop guns…and are frightened by Stoner’s seemingly random use of a real one. This is all before he takes us to handgun school…talking about the item as lovingly and carefully as he does the Lord.
Speaking of which…Stoner believes God is talking to him. The actual, one and only, God. No one seems to agree with this…but Stoner sure does. Weapons and religion are intrinsically tied together in Gunfighter Paradise. At one point Stoner says that children are the weapons men use to get into heaven. Passing on their mandatory faith to the next generation to earn their place in God’s Kingdom. At another point we see weekend warriors donning their homemade fatigues to protect their property from…no one in particular. Both are treated with the same level of reverence…and the same amount of dismissive eyerolling.
Which brings us to the big question. What is Gunfighter Paradise trying to say about all this? Well…it certainly exposes the dangers of both. But the impression I came away with was more that these things are so intertwined with the American way that the bad aspects that can result from them are simply inevitable. Bleak…sure. But it makes for a unique and often compelling movie in Gunfighter Paradise. Stoner’s mind seems to be failing him as the story unfolds…but he’s accompanied for most of it by a levelheaded cable guy. They don’t view the world around them differently enough to suggest anything other than that world is already mad…and accepted as such by the sane and insane alike. That’s another scary thing about Gunfighter Paradise.
Scare Value
Gunfighter Paradise is a dark satire set in the American south. It targets two of the tenets you’d associate with the region. What makes it stand out is how inevitable everything feels. No matter what strange idea Gunfighter Paradise throws into the mix the shadow of religion and weaponry looms over all of it. The performances are strong and the ideas are plentiful. It all adds up to a good movie that you may find difficult to decipher until that inevitability finally rears its ugly head.
3.5/5
