Dead for a Dollar | Venice Film Festival Review
Warren Burke, Rachel Brosnahan, and Christop Waltz in Dead for a Dollar
For a Few Dollars More: Hill Hunts for Honor in Old Fashioned Oater
By Nicholas Bell | Published on September 16, 2022
Walter Hill once famously said all his films, in one way or another, are actually Westerns. He returns to the literal sense of the genre in his latest, Dead for a Dollar, an ensemble cast of intersecting characters converging in, of course, a blazing shoot out. Fans of Hill’s filmography might be familiar with his exceptional contributions to the Western, particularly 1980’s The Long Riders, but also Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) and Wild Bill (1995). Utilizing the odd couple dynamic, which also defined his greatest hit 48 Hours (1982), a pair of honorable men must decide whether or not to do the right thing before the bullets fly and the dust settles. Hill has assembled a gloriously game cast (including a reunion with Willem Dafoe following 1984’s Streets of Fire), who together make up for what plays like a standard array of genre tropes. But a script from Matt Harris (The Starling, 2020) can’t quite seem to establish a sense of dread or tension, which allows for the film’s pacing to drag while all its darlings await their fate. Sans any significant subtexts to enhance the resilience of its various characters, there’s a sense of going through the motions despite some stand out moments from a sterling Dafoe.
It’s 1897 Albuquerque, and bounty hunter Max Borlund (Christoph Waltz) pays a visit to the imprisoned Joe Cribbens (Dafoe) at the end of a five-year sentence. The man who put Joe there was Max, and time has only made his personal vendetta stronger. Max shows up to warn Joe to steer clear once he’s released. But it just so happens, Max is commissioned discreetly by the US Army on a job for a budding politician (Hamish Linklater), whose wife Rachel Kidd (Rachel Brosnahan) has been abducted for ransom by army deserter Elijah Jones (Brandon Scott) and taken to Mexico. Discretion is required because Elijah is Black, and news of this would tarnish any political aspirations. Max is assigned a helpmate by the army, Sgt. Alonzo Poe (Warren Burke), the two of them traveling separately until they cross into Mexico, where a Black man and a white man traveling together won’t raise eyebrows. It just so happens, Alonzo was entrusted with a map by Elijah detailing his hideout because he expects his friend to deliver the ransom money. But Alonzo has no penchant for risking his livelihood, confiding in Max and also confirming Rachel has accompanied Elijah on her own volition. Once in Mexico, Max and Alonzo have a run in with a violent outlaw (Benjamin Bratt) who owns the surrounding land sans a quiet town called Trinidad Maria, where fate will bring all these disparate people together.
This isn’t Chrisoph Waltz’s first time at the rodeo, and his Max Borlund strays awfully close to his Academy Award winning turn in Django Unchained (2012). He’s joined by Warren Burke as the valiant Sgt. Alonzo Poe, whose integrity for his position in the US Army means betraying his best friend, Elijah. As the veritable heroes of the narrative, both actors have little room to stretch beyond the limitation of their roles, something which Harris’ highly sanitized script doesn’t assist with. In this politically correct version of 1897, there’s a distracting whitewashing of reality, and this seems like a Wild West tamed down as a ‘respectable’ reenactment. While this is apparent in the racial dynamics of the script, the handling of Brosnahan’s wayward Rachel Kidd is also a fantasy composite (Leone would have never). Even The Searchers (1956) boldly explored, at least in the subtexts, the inherent disdain white men felt toward women who, consenting or not, consorted with Black or Indigenous men. Rachel is a strong, fearless and blunt woman—but as she also vocalizes, has declared sexual agency for herself, and yet the film presents her as incredibly rigid personality, absent a sense of passion for Elijah despite the script’s intimations, and void of humor, as if a robot or Nancy Reagan were the aspirational notes being followed. Perhaps the negative backlash to Hill’s last film, The Assignment (2016) had something to do with the soft touch evident in Dead for a Dollar. While the use of racial expletives is not inherently required or wished for, the realities of the period feel declawed, which in turn lessens the impact of moments like Alonzo beating a racist white played by Scott Peat in a heated whip duel, or Rachel’s personal vengeance on those who wronged her.
Hamish Linklater provides some interesting moments cast against type as a Dennis Weaver-style villain, as does Benjamin Bratt as the brutal tyrant of the Mexican territory everyone else is technically trespassing on. But it’s really Dafoe as a low-grade criminal hungry for vengeance against the bounty hunter who stole five years of his life where the dialogue and the energy really crackle. Shot by Hill’s Bullet to the Head (2012) DP Lloyd Ahern, the production value feels higher than Hill’s last couple of features, recalling the scope of several projects from the 90s. Hill completists should find much to appreciate, even with an overly indulgent running time considering the simplicity of the narrative.
★★1/2☆☆☆