The stage is certainly set for this Western to scoop up Oscars in early 2015. Just seconds into the stirring trailer and the prickles of goose bumps are crawling down your flesh. After all, a truly great Western such as True Grit and El Topo, if done well, will always captivate your imagination as the dry desert of rural 1800 America becomes a character itself. This is initial feel for the brand new trailer for The Homesman. Directed by and starring Tommy Lee Jones, it has award fodder scrawled all over it. But does it have something deeper to it?
Also starring Hilary Swank, The Homesman focuses on the unlikely friendship between the low-life claim jumper George Briggs (Lee Jones) and a frontier woman who strangely lives by herself. When she saves his life, he finds himself committing to help here ferry three insane women to a safer place because their husbands can no longer look after them. However, of course, the journey is dangerous and they encounter all sorts of ruffians aiming to kill them.
As mentioned before, Westerns in the modern age have a certain appeal to them as they delicately portray the heat and outlaw nature of the dry desert. And there is a rather delightful ensemble cast here that includes the likes of John Lithgow and Meryl Streep which is always great to wet your appetite. But I can’t help feel this is a rather predictable affair. A cross country journey where there are dangers at every turn. An unlikely friendship between a gruff speaking man and an independent woman. I can even sense who is going to die and who isn’t, the drawl narration and the gun-slinging action. Not to mention William Fitcher is again a dirty beaten up raider who tries to take the women. Yawn.
Maybe the end product is good but this is one cliché too many.
The Homesman is out November 21st