Film Review: Good for Nothing ( A Kiwi Western)

Good for Nothing ( A Kiwi Western)

While the setting of most Westerns are mostly American many international cinemas had produced some of the Best Westerns ever made. Of course every knows Spaghetti Westerns often filmed in Spain from Django movies to the best films of Sergio Leone all of the Italian westerns took place in the American West or Mexico. In recent reason two awesome westerns were made that had international settings. The Korean western “The Good, The Bad, The Weird” was set in a old west like 1930’s Manchuria. The Australian Western “The Proposition” took place in a dirty nasty old west like outback. I was hoping for something similar setting out of this western filmed in New Zealand.

While the setting is never spoken or identified in the film it takes place somewhere in the American West. Good for Nothing is a low budget film by a first time director and it shows. Some of the performances are strong but most are flat. The plot and the film has potential to be darkly humorous but the delivery is not there. The best part perhaps is the performance of lead actor Cohan Halloway. He manages to make his Character despicable for most of the film and later likable. All this with out saying anything for the first half an hour except “My dick is broke.”

As good as he was, I was equally unimpressed with the other lead Igne Rademeyer. Her performance was flat to me, and since she was producer on the film I wonder if the director had bias that favored her despite the weak performance. Uneven with a weak script that fails to deliver on the dark humor of the concept. The suspense and tension is well done, but there are so many moments where the female lead fails to act in her own defense(just to drive the plot) that it will drive many viewers nuts. If you are going to watch a western from down under stick with the Amazing aussie one- The proposition.