These days, it feels like Frontier Partisans is becoming a movie news site. There’s a whole lot of frontier/Western cinema happening. This one looks like it has real potential:
“Hell or High Water” is a contemporary Western starring Jeff Bridges as a Texas Ranger — very self-consciously modeled on Joaquin Jackson.
Joaquin Jackson — real deal archetype of the modern Texas Ranger.
Bridges absorbed his lawman role, working closely with legendary Texas Ranger Joaquin Jackson. Bridges calls Jackson “one of the greatest Texas Rangers ever” and modeled Marcus after him.
Here’s the basics:
Marcus, the ranger that Bridges plays… pursues two Texas brothers (Chris Pine and Ben Foster) who have set on a dangerous spree of robbing various branches of the bank that is threatening to foreclose on their family land.
The movie is at Cannes and hits theaters in August.
Here’s a bit on Joaquin Jackson from Texas Monthly.
“The goal of a Ranger is the protection of life and property and the preservation of the peace,” he told me in May as we visited at his ranch-style home in Alpine. “And in doing so, everyone—from the poorest son of a bitch to the richest—must be treated the same.” Jackson said his proudest accomplishment is that he never took a life during his years with the Department of Public Safety. “I feel better about not killing anyone. It’s a better deal.”
He’s gotta be the most stylish golfer on the links, too.
Unlike his Ranger days, when he hunted arrowheads to take his mind off things, Jackson now plays golf at least twice a week. He walks to the first tee in a buckskin-colored Resistol complete with horsehair hatband, gripping a Titleist driver in one hand and a cigar in the other.
Wayne says
Texas Rangers, Jeff Bridges. I’ll see it!
JimC says
Yep.
deuce says
Ben Foster, too! He hasn’t done anything “Western” since “Yuma”. This looks good.
john roberts says
By coincidence, a scene from this film was shot literally around the corner from my house in Estancia NM. It’s a bank robbery scene and they spiffed up an old, abandoned but colorful turn-of-the-century bank on the main street of town. They were using a different working title for the movie, though. I heard Jeff Bridges was in town but I never caught sight of him.
A couple of months earlier that bank and a couple of blocks of the main street were used for the movie “The Preacher” based on a graphic novel series from the 80s. They dressed up the town with posters for a nonexistent high school football team and all sorts of business signs. One night it sounded like the town was being destroyed with explosives and gunfire. The miniseries debuts on AMC on May 22nd.
In both movies my town is supposed to be in Texas. This is carpetbagging, in my opinion.
JimC says
Look at it this way: New Mexico is what Texas wants to be.
Matthew says
As a Texan, those are fighting words!
JimC says
And the beer bottles start to fly…
Nah, Texas has nothing to worry about. It’s given the world the best music, hands down.
JimC says
And Robert E. Howard.
lane batot says
I TOLE yooz since a Western(of a sort) got Academy Award attention, there’d be a flurry of interest in the genera again! Let’s just enjoy it while it lasts, before things devolve back into the stereotypical crime dramas Hollywood usually comes up with……Is it just me, or does this film(in the above post) sound kinda like a darker, more serious version of that hoot-of-a-movie with good ole Slim Pickens(and a YOUNG Jeff Bridges!) “Rancho Deluxe”(whadd’n that the title?) back, oh, was it the late 70’s? Early 8o’s? Havta Google that……
JimC says
Tom McGuane!
Betty says
Dear Jim,
I have searched Frontier Partisans for any mention of “Will Penny.” I realize ol’ Will was not exactly a partisan, but as Western Cinema goes, this movie rates highly in my book.
It came out in the late 60’s, written and directed by Tom Gries. At the time, I was married to and actor, and was fortunate enough to accompany him to a special screening of “Will Penny.”
There were some celebrities of the day in the audience pointed out to me (my husband was a chronic name-dropper) but the only one that stuck in my memory was Ali McGraw, so that gives you a clue as to the date.
The movie was a feast, and for dessert we had both Gries and Heston talking to the audience, answering questions, and telling stories about the production. One part that impressed me most was Gries’ passion for authenticity in the props, particularly the firearms.
I just looked up the cast list and spotted characters I remembered, played by Ben Johnson and Slim Pickens, so we had some authenticity in the actors, too.
I remembered the bad guys slightly, had no idea at the time what a one-trick-pony Bruce Dern would become, but I had forgotten he was in the cast.
So studio politics or something delayed the distribution of this film and I feel it never got the recognition it deserved. Gries died young. Charlton Heston claimed he was proudest of this one.
Anyway, have you seen it? What did you think? Does it live up to my 50-year-old memory of it? I am hesitant to watch it again; maybe it wasn’t all that good…I have had other disillusions, oh, say it isn’t so.
JimC says
Outstanding. I don’t believe I ever saw Will penny. But I’m never one to shirk my duty — I will find it and tell you what I think.