Butcher's Crossing (2022)

[Winston T. Boogie]

Title: Butcher's Crossing (2022)

Tagline: Nature judges like a god all men that come to her.

Genre: Western

Director: Gabe Polsky

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Rachel Keller, Xander Berkeley, Fred Hechinger, Jeremy Bobb, Paul Raci, Amber Rose Mason, Jesse Cilio, Scott McCauley, Zuzu Weingart, Matthew Padgett, Gabriel Clark, Lance Otto, Jeff Medley, Duncan Vezain, Miles Auckland

Release: 2022-09-09

Runtime: 105

Plot: In the 1870s, a young Harvard dropout seeks his destiny out West by tying his fate to a team of buffalo hunters led by a man named Miller. Together, they embark on a harrowing journey risking life and sanity.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Always up for another western!

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Oddly, no trailer for this yet even though it was supposed to be released this year and I believe it was shown at TIFF.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Wondering where, when, and if this will be released anywhere.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Well, seems not much interest for this one round these parts but in the event anybody here is curious, I've seen it.

So, as soon as I heard about this another film popped into my head, The Last Hunt, a 1956 western directed by Richard Brooks and starring Stewart Granger and Robert Taylor...also about buffalo hunting. I will just say right off, I think The Last Hunt is a classic, underseen, somewhat overlooked, picture that really is a fantastic film. Granger and Taylor are outstanding in it and if you like westerns, it is a must see. Warner Archive did release it on Blu-ray and I think it is a must own disc.

OK, so as to Butcher's Crossing, well this is also about a buffalo hunt and it gets into some of the same territory as The Last Hunt about the blood lust that slaughtering hundreds of these animals can bring out in men. The Last Hunt is a much more intense and violent film about this topic and Taylor is a complete maniac in it. Truly a frightening psycho driven so insane by all the killing he does that killing anything is as normal and easy to him as drinking a glass of milk. I kind of expected that was what this film would ask of Cage, he being so famous for that kind of role, but no, Nic is subdued and down to earth in this. This has no meme material for him to play. He's good and does want to kill as many buffalo as he can but he seems more driven by greed than the lust to kill that overtakes Taylor's character in The Last Hunt.

The story they are telling in Butcher's Crossing is actually incredibly simple. A young man heads west because he wants to experience a buffalo hunt and arrives in the town of Butcher's Crossing to see a friend of his father's that runs a buffalo hunting business. This man tries to discourage the kid from going on a buffalo hunt. So, he goes wandering the town and meets the Nic Cage character, a buffalo hunter that claims to know where to go to find a massive herd of buffalo. Sure enough, the kid signs up to go on a hunt with Cage and his team. They go and hunt buffalo. Really, that is about all there is to it. The primary point of the film is buffalo hunting was a brutal slaughter, horrible work, and nearly drove the buffalo to extinction. I think the film was made to essentially remind people of this.

OK, so the good, the locations, buffalo, and outdoor photography are beautiful. The film is almost more scenic tour than anything else because the story is so slim and characters are not really developed. It may have been somewhat influenced by the work of Terrence Malik. It's got a bit of that feel. It is beautiful to look at and the characters react to the beauty of the outdoors and animals themselves. Part of the point of the film seems to be to revel in the natural beauty of what god has created and to contrast that with what man does to it...which is kill and destroy it. The buffalo are shown to be beautiful animals, animals that do react to members of their herd getting killed. If there is a hero in this story, it is the buffalo.

The not so good, the characters don't make much of an impact. They are pretty blandly written and kind of just open stereotypes. They seem secondary to just showing us the beauty of the west and I never connected with any of them. You know right off that the kid is misguided in his desire to experience a buffalo hunt. You pretty much know that is going to be an ugly and brutal activity. You know Cage's experienced hunter is driven by his desire to make a massive haul of buffalo hides for profit. You know the cook is a bit batty and the skinner that hires on with Cage is grouchy. Really, things don't get any deeper than that. You don't root for any of them, you just watch them.

Basically, my take is this, if you know nothing about how the buffalo population was nearly wiped out by overhunting them, this film will tell you about that and show you some gorgeous scenery. If you want a great movie about how nuts buffalo hunting was with fantastic characters, acting, direction, and story...well...see The Last Hunt from 1956, it is a wildly superior film in every way.

As a western junkie, I enjoyed this, it is worth watching if you are as well and you want to see some beautiful animals and scenery. If you are hoping for an absorbing story and characters that draw you in...again...The Last Hunt is the picture you want to see.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

An interesting side note on this picture, this had been originally set-up to star Thomas Haden Church in the Cage role and, believe it or not, Barry Keoghan as the kid.