If you’re thirsty to see Nicolas Cage half take on a role similar to Marlon Brando in Apocalypse now crossed with Judge Holden, then Butcher’s Crossing (now streaming on Hulu) could be your liquor bottle. I know, I’ve colored your perception with the phrase “half-hearted,” but that’s how Cage tends to work for some of these lower-budget works; He surely gives more effort to the dream scenariosand PigThere is in your file that this or, say, Willy’s Wonderland. And in this case, it’s not his fault, as the script doesn’t have enough oomph to take him over the top in Cage Crazyville. It is directed and co-written by Gabe Polsky, who adapts the novel of the same name by John Edward Williams, considered by some to be a predecessor to the brutal westerns of Cormac McCarthy, whose film adaptations, ironically, seem to have inspired this film. And if Butcher’s Crossing At times feeling too familiar and too spread out thematically, it may have enough redeeming qualities to justify a watch.
BUTCHER’S CROSSING: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: I don’t think Will Andrews (Fred Hechinger) really knows what he wants or what he’s doing. He’s following a vague sense of need for a big masculine adventure, perhaps, something beyond his clean, privileged (and probably wealthy) background, which sent him to Harvard but didn’t satisfy him. He’s soft as a kitten’s belly as he drives his horse and wagon toward Kansas, specifically to Butcher’s Crossing, a frontier town built on the buffalo hide trade. He is the most enthusiastic of the beavers, with money in his pocket and a stupid naive smile on his face. He compares that to the rest of the men in town, who look like they’re made of wrinkled leather and have hands that have never known the existence of a decent moisturizer. It’s 1874.
Will’s first stop is to see fur trader Charlie (Paul Raci), who chases our son away like a puppy sniffing out his stew. And so Will sidles up to Miller (Cage), a tall, bald, buffalo-skin-clad water-drinker. He needs a financier for his trip to Colorado, where he says the bison herds are so dense you can walk on them. Now, Miller might be chasing an invention, so the only way to get the $500 or $600 he needs is to strike a deal and take a rookie like Will to find himself, or maybe find something tremendously traumatic, although they are not. t mutually exclusive. It’s a deal. They’ll be joined by Miller’s one-armed old compatriot Charlie (Xander Berkeley) and skinner ace Fred (Jeremy Bobb), and you’ve got yourself. a crew stupid enough to walk God knows how long and distance to chase the El Dorado of buffalo conglomerations. Before he leaves, we are given another scene that demonstrates Will’s inexperience: he hooks up with Francine (Rachel Keller), a prostitute who is interested in him, and takes him back to his house. “I have the only rug in town,” she says. And just as she climbs into her lap, Will chickens out and runs.
As the journey to the bison’s legendary sacred land reaches the point where they could become lost and hallucinate without enough water, the ordeal of it all brings out the conflicting dynamics of these men. Miller is the crazed visionary, like the leader of a cult without many followers. Charlie might be the only true believer in him, but he’s also a superstitious old drunk. Fred is just an employee around here, working for the monthly payment and not for a final agreement on a possible reward that arouses his skepticism; he is also the designated idiot of the group, similar to bullying Charlie and stirring shit where it doesn’t need to be stirred. And then there’s Will, who after two days has a horrible rash on his inner thighs, and Francine isn’t here to massage aloe into his skin. The ride sucks for a while, then it gets better, then it gets wild, then it gets crazy, then it gets cold, then it gets tedious, then it gets even crazier, and… well, you probably saw all this coming even before Miller said something about Indian Burial Grounds, saying it too late for Will, Fred, or Charlie to do anything about it.
What movies will it remind you of?: Will Miller’s symbolic attempt to drag a steamboat over a mountain ultimately find the boat wrecked in the rapids, as in Fitzcarraldo? (NO SPOILERS.) Butcher’s Crossing transcend the mediocrity of recent westerns like World News either Hostile? (No.)
Performance worth seeing: I love Nicolas Cage. I am among his biggest apologists. But there are times when Butcher’s Crossing when he seems to be trying to fill in the gaps of a supported character by indulging in eccentricities—say, a shot of him dragging a dry razor blade across his bald skull—or channeling Colonel Kurtzisms so blatantly that it feels more like plagiarism. than the tribute. The acting feels more external than internal, a sign that a script needs another draft or two.
Memorable dialogue: Fred gives Will a lesson in skinning, and you don’t know if he’s making fun of the new kid or not: “I always keep the balls. They are good to eat and they put starch on your penis.
Sex and skin: No.
Our opinion: Butcher’s Crossing is packed to the brim with classic Western tropes: gorgeous landscape cinematography, motley crew in search of fool’s gold, a Manifest Destiny story of greed and madness, depiction of problematic politics, manly men doing manly shit, etc. a familiar tactic in which a crazed quasi-visionary drives his subordinates into hallucinogenic madness and fulfills all the narrative expectations that entail darkly psychological excursions into the wild to slaughter creatures that are potent symbols reflecting the gruesome sins of American white men. . Knowing the fate of the American bison (on the verge of extinction, with a demographic rebound led by Native Americans), we are very sure that this will not be a Shakespearean comedy with a happy ending.
Cage’s recent roles have ranged from low-budget genre/payoff work to prestige roles that will rank among his best artistic efforts (of which there are many). His work in Butcher’s Crossing It’s right in the middle of that spectrum, but there’s no denying that its presence elevates the process from forgettable to observable. Polsky’s direction is consistent but unremarkable, and contrary to the film’s main ecological and exploitationist themes, although frustratingly unfocused, he never really establishes nature as a force to be reckoned with, spiritual or otherwise. Wolves and Indians are mentioned, but they never feel like a real existential threat, and the sinister forests and desert plains are a picture-postcard backdrop for the mundane psychological journey of Will, a bland, undefined protagonist. Even the inevitable destruction of minds and souls at the climax is routine and disappointing, an egregious and unforced mistake when Cage leads the cast. When you have the weakest crazy man in Hollywood at your disposal and you don’t get the most out of him, well, that’s a beating.
Our call: Butcher’s Crossing It will be acceptable only to Cage and/or Western completists. The rest of us would do well to SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic living in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
