Nothing for Good

Since a friend commended it, I watch a Western... filmed in New Zealand! And there are plenty of landscape shots to make that point... and I went 'yep, that's the South Island all right'.

The main plot is... pretty bad really. The main male commits murder, abduction, attempted rape, murder and abduction again, of the female lead, in the first twenty minutes. And spends the movie trying to get over that 'attempted' part. But as we all know Abduction leads to Love, so that's not offensive at all. They do make the point, often, that while she might be able to run away, she'd be stuck in the South Island in the middle of nowhere, with no idea where to go... and at least the man is sort of taking care of her while he is on his 'poke' mission. I'm not sure if at the end we are supposed to root (sic) for him or not. Fine, women were treated like property, but this movie does go out of its way to make her a victim.

The other half of the plot involves a posse after him because of who he murdered. And they provide the light note in this movie, in that the fight scenes are far more realistic to how people would actually shoot each other. Or rather, shoot at each other. A fair bit of shooting, but little hitting. I have to admit, those scenes were pretty funny.

Decent production generally, but that plot is making me raise an eyebrow at it.

[END]