Jane Got A Gun, 2016.
Directed by Gavin O’Connor.
Starring Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Noah Emmerich, Rodrigo Santoro, Boyd Holbrook, and Ewan McGregor.
SYNOPSIS:
A woman asks her ex-lover for help in order to save her outlaw husband from a gang out to kill him.
Jane Got a Gun was riddled with production delays and other issues (even key ingredients such as the director and starring roles were shuffled around, as the project lingered on in development hell until being picked up by The Weinstein Company following the death of Relativity Media via bankruptcy), but once the credits roll for the finished version, you wouldn’t really suspect that the inner workings were so problematic.
Fundamentally, Jane Got a Gun successfully operates as a Western with its own flourishes of home-invasion plot threading and a unique role reversal take on the genre regarding gender. What’s most pleasant and intriguing however is that Jane (a mother played by Natalie Portman looking to defend her home after her husband comes home fatally wounded by a criminal gang, eventually looking to finish the job) is not written or developed to be an iconic character for the feminism movement, but is still a fairly capable and strong-willed character. She seeks out the assistance of an old flame to help take on the incoming bandits, leaving room for a love triangle to slowly take form and unravel its mystery.
The problem is that instead of letting Jane Got a Gun tell its story full of twists by just allowing its characters to interact with one another, we are treated to flashback scene after flashback scene, and to add insult to injury, most of them don’t really add much to the narrative emotionally. Instead, they just feel like exposition dumps that exist because none of the writers on board knew how to spoonfeed the information otherwise.
Jane herself is a fascinatingly complex character though, tasked with numerous tough choices to make throughout her increasingly difficult life. To say much more would probably go too much into spoiler territory, but let’s just say she’s easy to empathize with and understand why she tied the knot of marriage to a criminal, left her fiancé, and also has no quit in her attitude at staying alive on the run while always seeking out what’s best for her family. She also knows her way around a gun, but I guess that one is a given considering the title of the movie.
The other characters also fare decently at coming across as well-thought out defined beings; Jane’s once fiancé has his own problems and reasons for both spiting the woman he once loved yet still coming to her aid in perilous danger (by the way, he’s also played by Joel Edgerton who is essentially becoming a chameleon considering I had no idea he was in this movie until the ending credits). He both resents Jane’s husband, but deep down comes to respect him for taking care of her when he couldn’t.
Unfortunately, it’s the villains of the movie that all have weak motivations and no true reason to hate them aside from the fact that they are a band of outlaws with sizable bounties on their heads, hunting our protagonists. Some of the trauma revealed that they put Jane through is also fairly cliché, while the movie saves one final twist for its closing moments that feels far too convenient, solely existing to give the film the happiest ending possible. I’m also not sure that happy-go-lucky endings even belong in this genre, but I could just be getting too cynical. Either way, Jane Got a Gun builds up to some crowd pleasing action, but still ends on a rather unsatisfactory note.
It also can’t be denied that Jane Got A Gun is an aesthetically pleasing movie, boasting barren empty landscapes full of dust and deserts, with isolated lodges inhabiting the area, while also surrounded by ridges. The wardrobes all fit the era, but what really pops out off the screen is that even though the clothes are very basic, Jane is able to successfully conjure up in aura of physical intimidation and pure bad-assery. It’s not just because the appearance of Natalie Portman is far too beautiful for the time period either; the costume designers simply did a smashing job at passing her off as completely awesome.
I’m not sure if the answer to turn Jane Got a Gun from a good film into a great film lies in yet another screenplay rewrite to rid the experience of boring flashbacks and the fleshing out of more characters, because you can only rewrite something so many times before you completely fuck up whatever story it was that is trying to be told, but for what it’s worth, what we have is a mildly engaging Western with interesting central leads and strong acting performances. The result is nowhere near the unmitigated disaster many expected.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder – Chief Film Critic of Flickering Myth. Check here for new reviews weekly, friend me on Facebook, follow my Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
Originally published January 31, 2016. Updated April 15, 2018.
