classicsoncall Another reviewer states that no reason was given why the body of Ransom Pride (Scott Speedman) was being held captive by the disfigured bruja (Cote de Pablo). Actually there was. In the narrative, it was mentioned that Ransom killed a priest who was her brother, so she was keeping his corpse in recompense until Ransom's brother could be brought to her for revenge. By the way, 'bruja' means 'witch in Spanish, which goes a long way to explain why de Pablo's character seemed to be mystically inclined.The contrarian in me wants to completely disagree with virtually all the other reviewers here who slam the film as miserably bad. Although I can't go all the way on that, the picture is hampered by a film making style that wants to be stylistically clever, but winds up getting in it's own way very much of the time. The vertigo inducing jump cuts tend to confuse more than clarify, and add no coherence to the story. And when the story introduces characters like the Dwarf (Peter Dinklage) and the drug addled Siamese twins, it feels more like a Western episode of 'Carnivale' than anything else.I think I mentioned it in another review that there must be some unwritten rule somewhere that states that every Country singing star has to appear in at least one Western movie. This time it was Dwight Yoakam's turn, and even though he's fairly competent as the vengeful preacher of the Pride Clan, I can't say that it was an auspicious role. Kris Kristofferson of course has been in more than his share, and I get the feeling that he's offered these roles because he just naturally looks the part of a grizzled old cowboy.It goes without saying, even though almost all the other reviewers said it, that this film won't appeal to everyone. I didn't think it was terrible, but for those of a short attention span, enduring it might invite The Preacher's admonition of knowing the torment of hell.

Michael O'Keefe Tiller Russell writes and directs this strange, but somewhat interesting western. Ransom Pride(Scott Speedman)in many ways is a man's man, in spite of being a criminal and gunfighter. This realistic and rather raw drama finds Ransom gunned down in Mexico and his partner Juliette Flowers(Lizzy Caplan)vows to keep the promise to her lover and take him back home to Glory, Texas to be buried next to his mother. One major problem is that Ransom's body is being held ransom by a mysterious woman, Bruja(Cote de Pablo); she wants Flowers dead. The Reverend Early Pride(Dwight Yoakam)wants his son's body brought back from Mexico as much as he too wants Miss Flowers dead. Flowers, not shy to stab, slice or shoot, decides to deceive Ransom's little brother, Champ(Jon Foster), in helping her bring back his brother's body. All along Flowers knows that she is actually trading Champ for Ransom; a live brother for a very dead one. Between Glory and Mexico there will be hell to pay.How in the world they got Calgary, Alberta, Canada to look like Texas and Mexico is one of those magical things we go to the movies for...I guess. This flick does not go easy on the bloodshed and brutal violence. My main reason for viewing this movie is Miss Cote de Pablo, who you really have to look twice to recognize. Her character looks nothing like the beautiful NCIS agent she played on TV.Others in the cast: Kris Kristofferson, W. Earl Brown, Jason Priestley, Peter Dinklage and Blu Mankuma.

MBunge Well, that was a first. I was tired of watching this movie before the opening credits were over. Out of all the torturous, infuriating, depressing and defective cinema I have seen, nothing ever sucked so fast, so hard as The Last Rites of Ransom Pride. Fortunately, the rest of the film wasn't any worse that the very beginning or I would have had to garrote myself with a strand of dental floss. What the remaining inept mess did make me feel like doing is weeping for the future. There have always been terrible motion pictures but it used to be that the folks who made them knew what they were doing, they were just really bad at it. Now we get rubbish like this where the people who made it don't even know how to tell a story. They don't know how to construct a character. The don't know how to structure a plot. They don't know how to craft dialog. All they know how to do is copy what they've seen others do on screen without understanding any of it. It's like a chimp imitating a human…except the chimp is really, really stupid.Let's start with those opening credits. Imagine every excessively edited montage you've ever seen, the worst bits of every horrendous music video to ever see the light of day, and multiply that by 2. Then you'll have some idea of how irritating these opening credits are. They'll make you want to physically assault the person who put them together for being so insultingly clichéd.As for the story, a guy you won't care about (Scott Speedman) gets killed in Mexico in 1911. A girl you won't care about (Lizzy Caplan) agrees to buy back his body in exchange for the guy's brother (Jon Foster), who you also won't care about. The father of the two guys you won't care about (Dwight Yoakum) is kind of interesting, but only because he's played by Dwight Yoakum. As the girl and the brother you won't care about ride down South, the father and two others guys you won't care about (W. Earl Brown and Jason Priestly) follow. Not together, of course, because that might make some sense. No, the father and the two other guys travel separately, though they seem to take the same route. Maybe Yoakum insisted he share as little screen time as possible with Priestly.The girl and the brother you won't care about run into some other people you won't care about (Peter Dinklage, Blu Mankuma and the Quijada brothers) and eventually hatch a scheme to steal back the corpse of that first guy you didn't care about. That plot is foiled when the father shows up and that leads to the girl and the brother having a final showdown with him. Now, since the father is built up as the main villain through the entire film up to that point, you'd think such a battle would signal the end of the movie.Wrong! The Last Rites of Ransom Pride keeps going after killing its only interesting character and, instead, brings in yet another guy you don't care about (Kris Kristofferson) to have yet another showdown with the girl and the brother you won't care about. And that's the worst example in this whole pitiful production of how these filmmakers don't even know to tell a story. How can you not save the final battle with the father for the ending climax of the movie? How can you think bringing in a replacement at the end is going to work? I'm not even going to get into the laughable way they try to tie the final battle of the girl you won't care about with some other chick you won't care about together with this film's backstory prologue.And while all of that nonsense in going on, you're visually battered by cutaways, flashbacks, flash forwards and other editing/narrative digressions that you've seen a jillion times before, but which are apparently supposed to be improved here through sheer mass tonnage.From Lizzy Caplan using a grand total of one expression and one inflection for the entire flick, to wondering how much Scott Speedman wishes he'd been in the 3rd Underworld sequel instead of this thing, to realizing that even someone as talented at Peter Dinklage has to probably take every part he's offered because there just aren't that many roles for a little person, The Last Rites of Ransom Pride is a parade of discouraging failure. A stubbed toe is more entertaining than this thing because at least the pain doesn't last for over 80 minutes. Don't just skip it. Vault over it.

elmoworx Another in a long line of pretentious Canadian films. Too often, I see Canadian film makers who think they have to display all manner of pseudo-intellectual, artsy nonsense in order to convince the viewer that the Canadian movie experience is more cerebral and enlightening than those gauche, low-brow US movies. Harumph!And yet they borrow every US-based visual trick to make their films. The result is a lurching Frankenstein monster that sends me running for my torch light and pointed stick.This movie is visually ugly, with jerky cutaway shots that make me think they are trying to do a style job a la Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula." Coppola shows us how it's done when done well; sorry guys, but you show us what it looks like when done badly.This could have been a beautiful, interesting Western if they'd have stuck to some of the more traditional elements of the genre. I'm thinking something along the lines of "The Assassination of Jesse James..." Obviously, they didn't have a Brad Pitt budget, but my opinion is that they wasted too much cash on the unnecessary visual junk.And speaking of cash, I imagine the constraints of Canadian government funding also put the strangle-hold on their efforts. There is little funding to be had for Canadian art unless it screams pretentiousness and faked intellectualism.You want to know something? When I watched this one on Netflix, I never knew it was Canadian by its description. It was listed as a Western and I love Westerns, so I picked it out. Two minutes into it, I had it pegged as a Canadian film. Go figure.And in case you're wondering, I am Canadian, myself, and I do like some Canadian flicks. "The Saddest Music in the World" is one of my faves. It shows that you can be quirky without being a snob about it. That is a FUN movie, filmed (in an old warehouse in Winnipeg) with Vaseline smeared on the camera lenses. Nothing high-brow or snooty, here, folks! HA HA HA!!Ahem...back to the review.The characters in this one are unpleasant. Dwight Yoakam is fun to watch, but he can't carry such a heavy load on his shoulders alone. I'm not going to lay out the details of bad characters - suffice to say there was no character that I could root for, or get behind, or cheer for!In the long run, I guess it's all about personal taste, so I would never tell a person to pass this one by. The fact that people made this movie (presumably with some enthusiasm) is testimony that SOMEONE out there is interested in this type of thing. But it ain't me, Babe. No, no, no...it ain't--Well, you get the idea.Be forewarned, is all. It's called a Western, but doesn't feel like one. Not by a long shot. It feels like you're standing in an allegedly upscale museum, where people are expected to praise every splatter and smear simply because they've been told that it's art.I don't consider my tastes to be low-brow. I am fully capable of appreciating cerebral works. Actually, I enjoy movies of all genres. The only thing I ask is that it entertains me. Entertains my eyes, my ears, my imagination. This one did none of those things.