Dawn Rider is a yarn about a man outside the law, John Mason (Christian Slater) who becomes entangled with a gang of thugs called "Dos Eques" after they kill his father.
The violent gang wears white sheet facial masks, robs the Pony Express, and one of them injure Mason as he attempts to stop them. Watch for a heavily bearded Donald Sutherland chasing Mason throughout the film and waxing poetically about Mason's dastardly deeds. Sutherland is like 50 year old scotch, take a few sips, savor, and place back on the shelf, he is every ones father, or grandfather.
Slater channels his western chops and turns out a decent performance. Unfortunately Dawn Rider moves much to slowly to generate mounting excitement, or delves deep enough into the character development, for the viewer to care more than a trifle about most of the actors in the film.
The only secondary character given any screen time at all is Alice, (Jill Hennesy). Alice is a rough talking, forthcoming, highly charged, salacious woman, that has a liking of guns, and non traditional sex. She is a treat to watch in Dawn Rider, and works hard to get deeper into her role, with well placed voice inflection and expressive eye movement.
Dawn Rider's settings for the most part reflect life in the west in the 1880s, clothes, buildings, and background. According to IMDB this film cost 5mil to make. It appears that several elaborate outside sets were built, but nothing here seems to scream out huge budget. (Thanks for the budget correction in the comments sir.)
Dawn rider has a few high points of shoot-out western action when the gang robs the stagecoach. Hennesy is a good actress and is entertaining to watch as she exudes aggression with her Alice character. In fact as the film progresses, I wait in intrepid anticipation until she graces the screen again.
Dawn Rider is not a great western, but decent enough to recommend a rent. I rate this tale of pursuit and payback a 5 out of 10. I rate Jill Hennesy cute and talented haha, I am out!
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(C) 2012 Danny Shamon, Dan's Movie Report
I think you misread IMDB, the budget was $5 million
ReplyDeleteWhy is there a radio in the opening scene if this is the 1880s west?
ReplyDelete