The Impulse to Press Play
Listen. I don’t know what possessed me to press play on Gunslingers. Maybe it was the moon, maybe it was that creeping sense I’ve been tracked across multiple states, but I’m glad I did. This is one of those movies that comes in like a dust storm and leaves your mind riddled with holes, like a church wall in the third act.
Welcome to Redemption
Plot-wise, we’re in the town of Redemption, a desert hideaway where every bartender, doctor, and Sunday school teacher is actually a fugitive in disguise. Fake deaths. New names. Low whispers in dark saloons. It’s Witness Protection meets The Magnificent Seven, dipped in blood and gospel. That’s the hook, and boy do they run with it.
A Stranger with a Name
Some stranger rides in, said his wife and kid went missing, starts describing a man named Thomas Keller. Turns out this Keller is his brother, and there’s a $100,000 bounty on his head for allegedly killing a Rockefeller. The guy (Robert Keller, played with snake in the-spine energy by Jeremy Kent Jackson) gives the town an ultimatum: hand Thomas over, or he’ll collect bounties on every last person there.
The Fuse Is Lit
From there it’s bullets, betrayals, and a priest who may or may not have killed a cardinal back in ’89.
RELATED: Watch The Trailer For Gunslingers
Nicolas Cage Brings the Gospel
And that priest? Nicolas Cage, ladies and gentlemen. Playing Ben, a scripture-quoting ex-wanted man who keeps his head low until he absolutely does not. He does a full baseball slide under gunfire at one point, robes flying, gun blazing, and I stood up and said “Holy hell.” Then, in the final act, he’s calling down the wrath of God while double-fisting revolvers and speaking in tongues. The man goes medieval. We’re talking John Wick by way of Pentecost. Note to self. Nicholas Cage does not speak in tongues while simultaneously double-fisting revolvers. Give me some leeway folks.
The Town Roars Back
Stephen Dorff plays Thomas Keller like a weary lion, half-asleep until it’s time to maul. Heather Graham and Tzi Ma give solid performances, and Costas Mandylor as Jericho gets one of the best moments in the film, when he returns all the original weapons to the surviving townsfolk. That moment’s pure outlaw poetry. These people were killers, ghosts, shadows. But when death rides in, you don’t hand it a broom. You give it the axe it left behind.
The Villain Might Be Right
As for Robert, the villain, well. I hated him. Until I spoke to the actor, Jeremy Kent Jackson. Then it hit me: maybe he’s the only one telling the truth. Maybe Redemption ain’t where people go to start over. Maybe it’s where liars go to bury the people they used to be.
No Saints, No Saviors
This film doesn’t pretend to know who the good guys are, and I appreciate that. Sometimes the man in black is just the only one willing to tell the truth, even if it’s through a rifle scope.
Final Verdict
Verdict? Gunslingers is a dusty fever dream of guilt, gunpowder, and gospels. It’s pulp. It’s prophecy. It’s everything I wish I had the guts to be when I fake my next death and ride west.
Bring a match. Redemption burns easy.
Gunslingers Trailer!
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