Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Big Kill Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman March 20, 2019

We may be at a point where the so-called “revisionist western” has “revised” itself right back into “traditional western” territory, at least if Big Kill is any indication. While often intentionally jokey in a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid kind of way, especially with regard to the bantering interplay between two of the main characters, Big Kill tends to exploit tried and true western tropes instead of attempting reinvent the (wagon?) wheel. The results are surprisingly spry, at least for those willing to wade through a few undeniable clichés. The film opens in what almost plays like a send up of the ending of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with interlopers Travis Parker (Clint Hummel) and Jake Morgan (Scott Martin, who also wrote and directed) surrounded by a small but aggressive Mexican army force led by General Morales (Danny Trejo). It’s obvious that Travis and Jake are just basically “good old boys”, though they’ve evidently divorced the General from some funds, and one of them is actually in the process of deflowering the General’s daughter, leading to expected consequences. The two hightail it out of Mexico into Texas, surprised to see that the General is so intent on bringing them to justice he’s broken international law by simply crossing the Rio Grande (or whatever the rather smallish river that is shown is supposed to be), continuing the chase the two to a small cavalry encampment they happen across. When the commanding officer of the fort, Colonel Granger (Michael Paré), informs the General he’s on the verge of starting a war, the General unhappily retreats, but it at least appears for a moment that Travis and Jake aren’t totally out of the woods, since the Colonel wants them to stick around until he can figure out what to do with them. When an east coast dandy named Jim Andrews (Christoph Sanders) shows up at the fort, all bets are off, though, once James reveals his brother owns a saloon at an Arizona boom town known as Big Kill, something that sparks the interest of Travis and Jake.

In a way, the whole opening scenes of Big Kill are kind of unneeded, for the bulk of the story actually plays out between Jim, Travis and Jake, first as they make their way to Big Kill, and then even more so after they've arrived. The town is far from "boom" territory, it turns out, with a mine no longer providing untold riches, and everyone under the sway of a menacing figure known as The Preacher (Jason Patric), who delivers "judgments" on people, avenging angel style, in a character that seems intentionally designed to evoke the title character of The Complete Sartana (albeit in a probably more sinister way). Jim Andrews is also surprised to find out his brother is not the owner of the local saloon, and in fact his family may not even be welcome there. While Travis has already been well documented as an inveterate ladies' man, some of the story ends up detailing the kind of sweet romance between Jim and Josie Strong (Elizabeth McLaughlin).

It's kind of hard to know at times just what Martin intended with this film. On one level it seems to be a rather heartfelt homage to "old style" Westerns, but there's also a decidedly artificial aspect to a number of elements that kind of leads me to think Martin is aiming for some kind of "meta" quality here which some may not feel has been fully realized. To cite just a couple of examples, Lou Diamond Phillips is on hand as The Preacher's main henchman, Johnny Kane, and if Jim appears to be something of a dandy, just take a look at Johnny'd duds in screenshot 16. Even Big Kill looks patently fake in the same way that all of the towns in the ubiquitous western television series Warner Brothers pumped out in the late fifties and early sixties tended to. At times, Kays Al-Altrakchi's score plies what I'd call a kind of Bruce Broughton Silverado grandiosity, where it seems to be used ironically, at least on occasion. At other moments, Al-Atrakchi is clearly emulating Ennio Morricone's work on The Man with No Name Trilogy, down to an including a "whistling" motif that simply can't help but refer to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

If the tone of Big Kill may strike some variously, a lot of the film registers surprisingly viscerally. Performances are quite winning throughout, and while the town itself is kind of drab and generic, Toby Bronson’s costume designs are really colorful and provide consistent interest (some of the men are arguably better dressed than the women, as has been hinted at). Martin has a firm grasp on keeping things visually interesting, and the film’s chaotic final shootout (of course the film’s climax is a shootout) is well staged if on the improbable side. Big Kill may well appeal to western fans who have had their fill of dark, brooding anti-heroes and way too much dust and dirt on the streets.

Big Kill Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Big Kill is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Cinedigm with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. I haven't been able to track down any authoritative technical data on this shoot, but my assumption is this was culled from a 2K DI of a digitally captured source. This is often a very scenic film, even if Big Kill itself looks decidedly like an old school backlot. Some of the best fine detail emerges in the really impressive and often very colorful costumes various characters wear. Everything from bright oranges to lime greens are exploited, and often pop with excellent saturation. Detail on fibers and the like is similarly precise looking. The palette looks natural throughout and many of the wide vistas (seen mostly in the opening moments of the film) have nice depth of field.

Big Kill Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Big Kill features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that provides some big swells of surround activity courtesy of Kays Al-Atrakchi's enjoyable score, but which has some kind of odd sounding moments with regard to dialogue at times. I'm not sure if perhaps things were post-dubbed and ambient differences are part of this, but there are moments where the dialogue sounds kind of boxy, on the "dry" side (i.e., lacking reverb or "space"), with what sounds like just slight distortion in the upper midrange. That particular anomaly aside, there is nice placement of ambient environmental effects in the many outdoor scenes, and elements like gunshots reverberate clearly and with quite a bit of force.

Big Kill Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements of any kind are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Big Kill Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I was kind of surprisingly engaged by Big Kill. This is a film unafraid to travel western roads that are veritable rut fields, a la the Oregon Trail, having been gone down so many times before. I kind of wish Martin had gone for even more of the gusto in some of the hints he drops in terms of references to other westerns, not to mention a kind of cheeky attitude that I personally feel might have been pushed even a bit further. Big Kill may not do anything new, but it offers some fun performances and a generally breezy approach to its subject that feels unexpectedly refreshing. Technical merits are decent (audio) to excellent (video), and with caveats noted, Big Kill comes Recommended.