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Bud Boetticher’s cult favorite Ranown Cycle and Sam Peckinpah’s “Ride the High Country” bring to mind the strikingly brutal taste of westerns, which can be seen in Michael Feifer’s Last Shoot Out. In Michael Feifer’s indie movie “Last Shoot Out”, which seeks to capture a budget-tight audience who relish B-class movies, there is noticeable hint of Randolph Scoot’s portrayals.
Admittedly, this blend is not likely to be mistaken for one of the classics or even influenced by one of them. But it is far superior to some of the most recent attempts to harness streaming services, and indeed a considerable leap from Feifer’s own “Catch the Bullet” which came out only last September, and it includes a ruthlessly nasty Bruce Dern who takes on a role reminiscent of Walter Brenan’s vicious Old Man Clanton in “My Darling Clementine.”
Blair Callahan doesn’t have much screen time, but he makes the most of it. Callahan plays an obnoxiously authoritative head of a family of rustlers, killers, and assorted other disreputable scoundrels. Some of them are Jody (Michael Welch, who is clearly overly excited for this role), a rather dim-witted son who has surprisingly won the affections of Jocelyn (Skylar Witte), a small-town beauty whose father, a lawman, has recently passed away.
However, right before the couple could get intimate on their wedding night at the ranch, Jocelyn overhears Blair and Sid (Cam Gigandet) along with others having a very disturbing conversation. The two men seem to agree that Jody will not be able to satisfy his needs, and Sid could end up having to take charge. But wait, there is more to it: Blair alludes to Sid killing Jocelyn’s father, which was a move to protect the lawman from arresting Jody for murdering a “floozie” that ruined his manliness.
Jocelyn, who is understandably upset, departs from the ranch. She comes across two travelers on her way to a very remote stage coach station. Red (Peter Sherayko) is a gruff man transporting supplies to the outpost and Billy (Brock Harris) seems to be a very dull stranger out to meet a particular target. When Sid and Twigs Jay Pickett appear for the runaway bride, Billy turns out to be quite the shot. But, more importantly, Billy shows uncommon restraint and decides to disarm Sid instead of shooting him dead.
Billy ultimately learns that shutting off his killer instincts comes at a cost, especially when he sees Blair at the station with Sid, Jody, and a group of hired goons ready to open fire without care. To Blair, there isn’t such thing as an innocent onlooker, not even those stuck in a stagecoach. “Go kill every goddamn one of them,” the old man commands. “Leave no one alive.” Dern doesn’t even need to get off his chair to effectively deliver lines like that.
Focusing on a dry outline credited to Lee Martin, Feifer efficiently stitches together the more mundane conversations and reveals some of which are shocking but most are ho hum that lead to the title conflict at the stagecoach station. The over reliance on flashbacks feel overly excessive, and it needs to be said both Harris and Gigandet do not resemble gritty gunmen quite as much as they do male models on an inexplicably distant western-themed photoshoot.
Regardless, both actors are more than capable of tackling the rough work in the visceral action sequences, which are precisely crafted (by Ted Gianopulos). Furthermore, they are supported by a cast that is more than willing to participate, including David DeLuise as the clever stagecoach station operator and Brock Burnett as a pompous businessman who travels by stagecoach.
The modernization of Westerns has led to the creation of these characters, who serve virtually no purpose except for being the punch line (which he does, over and over again) to as well as increasing the number of victims. That he actually doesn’t get what’s coming to him does signal that the filmmakers want their audience to enjoy an ending that is not simply happy, but almost delightful. Well, delightful except for the characters who deserve to end up on Boot Hill.
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