The Thicket
In 2013, Joe R. Lansdale’s Western novel The Thicket made its mark by opening with “one of the most outrageous first lines” to a title since Hunter S. Thompson’s first line in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
“Grandfather came out and, with his hands grabbed the both of us, Lula and I, towards the ferry, was how I was deep in thought. I imagined such things would become far worse than how the days had gone until now, or that in the chaos, I’d end up in the arms of a gun crazy midget the Funky West’s angry hogs son, etc This is how it happened, to my surprise, I fell in love and murdered someone.”
However, the viewer never gets tired of the pulp novelist who, as many others, does some bizarre things in Texas. Instead of focusing on bloodshed or battles, Joe R. Lansdale makes everything entertaining by tossing a few punches. But, in the “Thicket” film adaptation, nothing is really ever funny. The film poster features Dinklage, who also serves as the star and producer of the project and plays Reggie Jones.
Together with Eustace who is portrayed by the actor Gbenga Akinnagbe, who portrayed in “the Wire”, a cold-blooded bounty hunter is hired by Jack, a Christian teenager who is portrayed and is the son of actor Ethan Hawke. Cast A Christian teenager, Jack played by Levon Hawke, the son of parents Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman seeking his little sister, who was kidnapped by a vicious criminal Cutthroat Bill and her band of outlaws. Esme Creed-Miles, a British actress, plays the young girl. Cutthroat Bill is played by Juliette Lewis.
While these two books, ”True Grit” and “The Searchers,” both have been made into impressive feature films, “Thicket” is more closely aligned with the gutsy spaghetti westerns of Sergio Corbucci (the pessimistic “The Great Silence” is one of his most well-known films) and American acid Westerns like “The Proposition” and Andrew Dominik’s “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.” Director Elliott Lester has previously worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger in Aftermath, an action movie that went straight to VOD, and in this film, Commander Blackburn snow caked throughout Canada, leaving us soup he’s just as merciful as the Wild West.
The wicked imprese screenplay of Chris Kelley is completed by such nasty strongmen and mentally unstable people who will not be able to reproduce offspring who tries to injure or kill those who have testosterone or some degree of a moral code.
And all the same, despite being a character in Lansdale’s book, they do not seem to have had any racist views. This implies that they are equally naive at the start and get their fair share of beating before they are able to bear with the harshness of the world. It is not as if their smallpox infected parents did not die on their own and their grandfather, Guy Sprung was shot by Bill while taking them to their aunt in Kansas, which started this horrible journey.
The antagonistic tone that Lester and Kelley set out to achieve is on point and, at times, even throws you out of your comfort zone in terms of sheer violence. Akinnagbe is supportive and brave while Dinklage plays the wise, angsty character quite well, and this chemistry between the two makes it possible to witness this lifetime which seems to head towards tragedy in case of failure easily. Sadly, other colleagues seem indecisive with respect coming at you looking straight or coming for you with a mad rush.
Lewis slugs around this thing like a cross between Captain Jack Sparrow and Calamity Jane. Shoul, who Andy Lansdale I briefed to have been male, now has a particularly sinister female leader, a big tough bitch who has obviously been battered by years of patriarchal abuse, physically and mentally. Lewis on her part simply stays ridiculous, smoking licorice and making a mess off stage. There were some bizarre cameos by Metallica lead James Hetfield as one of the many henchmen on the hunt for Jones and Andrew Schultz as a poet who slaps Roy for trying to leave his whorehouse together with an imprisoned avatar of Batgirl Leslie Grace although in the midway sandwich seems to sport an af.
The readers seeking an all-out savage and ice cold thriller may be interested in “The Thicket” going as far as to say it wears its brutality on its sleeve in the most gory way possible (the same ones who enjoy those ghetto movies for real may find this enjoyable too). But the over the top portrayal of violence is too much for readers who are after mindless entertainment, even from genre fans who read the original novel by the old crook the film is based around.
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