I tend to like westerns more than the average film fan. There aren't a great deal of them being made anymore, so as a result I tend to catch every single one that does come out. This is the reason I decided to take a gander at the obscure, low-budget oater Defiance. I wasn't expecting anything very good, to be sure; I just needed a break from watching the latest crap movie involving buddy cops and/or stray nuclear weapons.
The film opens to pitch black night. Then someone heaves a couple of stones into a steel garbage can, or was it gunfire? Now we see two young guys with drawn revolvers standing at a campfire, so I guess that noise was supposed to be gunfire. One of the young men asks the other who he shot. Did someone get shot? There's no body in view. The other young man doesn't know who he shot, but figures that anyone that would come near them was looking for trouble.
We begin listening to some lazy acoustic guitar strumming that is par-for-the-course even in good westerns. The screen goes black again, and we get what I guess is supposed to be some quote of deep-meaning: "Lightning struck twice when a father's evil spread." which leads us to the age old question of which came first: the father's bad mojo or the double lighting strikes. I suppose this is a rather clunky way to inform us that the two young men are bad, or are paying for their father's sins, or... it's just clunky. Luckily, a narrator's voice reads that quote for us, so it must really be a good one. The narrator sounds like the old fart who announced the 'Beef - It's what's for dinner' commercials or the old fart that narrated 'The Dukes of Hazzard' TV show. Then again, a film like this wouldn't be able to afford top-flight talent like that.
By the way, the continuous laconic acoustic guitar strumming I'm hearing is NEVER going to stop; I've just consulted with my future self. The narrator also continues droning on, as we see the main roads and inhabitants of Defiance: "Defiance was the name of the town; it fits because the folks were as defiant as they come." Now I'm not so sure about the folks, as they all look like usual 'old west' characters. The folks' clothing, though, is certainly defiant to dirt. Everyone in this dirty, dusty town wears the brightest, cleanest, newest clothing one could imagine. Somewhere, a Wal-Mart's formalwear department is empty. Isn't it odd how in low-budget westerns clothing tends to look uncannily new and clean? Has dirt gotten that expensive?
Anyway, we learn that the time and place is 1874 Missouri. A man named Nathan Cross prepares to leave his house on some sort of armed mission. Cross is played by ex-NHL hockey enforcer Tony Twist!!! Twist was known exclusively for his fighting prowess, not so much because he fought a lot but more because Christmas was a more frequent event than a Tony Twist goal.
Nathan Cross exits his house but not before one of his two bright-red shirted sons asks, "Are you coming back soon?" Cross turns to his son and dramatically exclaims... "Probably." If that wasn't anti-climactic enough, Twist speaks through all his lines with the emotion of an automated telephone operator.
It turns out Cross was only headed to the saloon, so I'm not sure why the (alleged) dramatic tension was built up. He plays cards with some other individuals who, despite looking like ornery hardened guys, take care to fashion freshly laundered duds.
A group of meaner-looking guys suddenly bursts into the place, fulfilling rule #1 of movie saloons. The mean guys work for Clay Randall, a big-shot that owns most of town, fulfilling rule #3 or so of western movie towns. They incoherently blabber with Cross about something I'm sure must have been important. Cross shoots all the mean guys dead and leaves the saloon.
We cut back to Cross' house that same evening, where he talks to his weak, bedridden wife. It looks like Nathan is getting ready to go out yet again. His wife nervously asks him where, and Cross replies, "I have to go to the saloon."!?! Ok, Nathan, but on your way back please try to find a new plot point… or at least an emotion.
Clay Randall and Nathan Cross are apparently both wealthy men who demand respect. While droning on about that, the narrator now reminds me of Wilford Brimley, if Wilford swilled scotch by the quart and smoked lucky strikes three at a time. We see crusty, gray haired old Randall complaining in his saloon or living room or whatever. It turns out that Randall doesn't like the fact that Cross decided to settle in 'his' town, and Cross has no love for Randall either. We don't get any specific details about why they dislike each other, just the vague 'not big enough for the two of us' cliché that got old shortly after the invention of westerns. He states that Nathan chose to raise a family in Defiance because it was: "A town with no rules, where a man with a dark past could start over." Well, except for that one apparent rule about keeping your whites and colors equally bright, that is.
Cross learns that Randall has been locked in the town jail for some vague offense. Tired of Randall's attempts at intimidation, Cross decides to hire some help to head to the jail to kill Randall, and any law enforcement officials that may get in the way. We still get no specifics (spotting a trend here?) as to why Cross and Randall want each other dead, other than they're two arrogant pricks with lots of money, which in turn makes it difficult to care what happens to either of them.
Cut to the jail, where we see the calm old sheriff and his jumpy deputies (fulfilling rule #1 of old west law enforcement personnel), having heard of Cross' plot, prepare for a battle. Oddly, we get a glimpse of Randall in his cell sporting jet-black hair; didn't realize jails in 1874 offered free hair-dye services. Over at Cross' house, we see that he has assigned some men to watch over his family while he's off killing Randall. I give the film points for this, as many typical Westerns as well as crime dramas have a character hunt down an enemy while naively leaving his family unguarded to predictable result. Back at the jail again, we hear a crappy dubbed-in dog's bark. The sheriff yells at the tape recorder, er, dog to be quiet. I don't understand why they bother adding a random dog bark when they couldn't even bother to have an actual dog on the set. I suppose they originally did, but the agent told the dog it would be a bad career move.
The jail erupts in gunfire. Some ornery character named Buck Riley shows up with some men and kill the sheriff and his deputies. They rescue Clay Randall from jail and head off. Randall, Riley and their men then show up at Cross' home and kill the men guarding his family. Now Randall is back to his gray hair. That crappy 1874 hair dye sure wore off quickly. We have no idea where the hell Cross is during all of this until he finds out about the jailbreak. Cross heads home but is ambushed and blown away by Randall.
At the cemetery, a couple of gravediggers chat about Nathan Cross, while they prepare his grave. One of them states that he believes Cross used to be known as Casey Dobson, a feared gunslinger who killed twenty men. The film makes this seem like a shocking revelation (I think); It may have been more surprising had we not already seen the guy kill a dozen or so people in the movie already.
Anyway, Cross/Dobson is no more, so I can thankfully cross (haha) those two names off the list of characters I need to remember for the duration. His young sons, Will and Tommy, look on sorrowfully. They can at least take solace in the fact that their continuously worn red shirts are still as fresh and vibrant-looking as ever.
