Gallowwalkers hits DVD, Digital Download and Video on Demand On August 6
A mysterious gunman, Aman (Wesley Snipes), is the son of a nun who breaks her covenant with God to ensure his survival. This act brings a curse upon Aman — all those that die by his gun will return. Soon, he is hunted by a gang of his undead former victims, led by the vicious Kansa (Kevin Howarth). Aman enlists Fabulos (Riley Smith), a new young warrior, to fight by his side.
Sergio Leone meets Uwe Boll in this supernatural western action film directed by Andrew Goth and starring Wesley Snipes. And by that I mean, there are some very clear homages, nay even lifts, taken from the works of Leone but all fitted together with Uwe Boll’s flare for the indecipherable and insufferable.
What convinced me to check the film out? I’m a Wesley Snipes fan, and I didn’t feel I needed much more reason than that. Gallowwalkers sounded kind of like a Western Blade and that concept piqued my curiosity JUST enough to give this film a spin. Not to mention the fact that Gallowwalkers has the notoriety of being the film Snipes happened to be filming when he ended up being indicted for tax fraud. If you are keeping track, yes, that means Gallowwalkers was actually shot all the way back in 2006 and is only now getting a home video release.
Does the film deserve that home video release? Well, I’m going to say yes, this is a film that probably deserves to be available to a large audience on home video. It is also a pretty terrible film.
A few elements of Gallowwalkers are engaging. The costume design is clever and rich. The production value is remarkable; with the film being shot in Namibia you get incredible vistas and landscapes that feel eerie and fit the film’s tone. And there are some character designs and pieces of art direction that are pretty neat. The villainous Kansa returns from the dead sans skin (for some reason the gallowwalkers have to slap on new skin from time to time) and his character design is stunning. The practical effects and makeup used to create this skinless man, all muscles and sinews, was uncharacteristically excellent. And cinematographer Henner Hofmann knows how to frame a shot, fill the frame with interesting visuals, and even pull off some grand, sweeping camera movements that must be tough in the Namibian desert.
Unfortunately, this is where the engaging elements come to an end. Right off the bat, the film was so directly paying homage to Leone’s Once Upon A Time In The West, complete with a creaky windmill and a triangular standoff, that I had a smile on my face. But director Andrew Goth and editor Rudolf Buitendach have a really hard time cutting this film together in any kind of functional way. There are lots of cool shots, heroic poses, sweeping vistas, and frame-filling close ups, but next to no coherency or geographical orientation. Even Leone-like standoffs filled with twitching fingers and stone-cold faces just feel off when you can’t tell who is standing where, or who characters even are, or why they matter.
Snipes’ Aman is meant to be the archetypal silent and mysterious gunman. But he delivers the most painful and tedious sequences of exposition imaginable, which is pretty much a cardinal sin when your character is an homage to the Eastwoods and Bronsons of yore. Bronson’s character Harmonica was mysterious in Once Upon A Time In The West precisely because he was stoic, and had an agenda that neither characters nor audience could quite figure out. And when we finally learn his story? We see it, we aren’t told it. Here co-writers Goth and Joanne Reay just litter their film with clunky exposition and painful back story that is delivered to a sidekick gunslinger by the name of “Fabulos” who seems to only be in the film to allow there to be a character that Wesley Snipes can talk to and deflate any sense of mystery there might have been.
Gallowwalkers’ issues are simply insurmountable. When the strengths of a film lie only in location work and costuming and character design, that is a problem. Throw in poor action direction, terrible writing and plot development, and performances that can never surmount the screenplay they are saddled with, and you get a terrible film that just might appeal enough to Snipes completists or Western mash-up fans to warrant existing on home video.
The Package
Not released in high definition, the film could have benefitted from a high def transfer as it actually does look great on occasion thanks to its location work. And Snipes’ chiseled visage. But I’m sure it wasn’t deemed financially viable to release the film on Blu-ray, and I think that was probably the right call. It is a good-looking movie more often than not and you can do a lot worse, especially in the Direct To Video market.
You also get a behind the scenes featurette that goes into a little bit of the thinking behind shooting in Namibia, which I found interesting. But otherwise you have the typical talking heads praising their director and his “clever” “homages” to Leone’s work.
You can also use an Ultraviolet code to add the film to your digital library, which is something I’ve never done in my life and probably never will. Does anybody have a big Ultraviolet collection? Serious question.
Die hard Snipes fans or marginally curious Leone fans are the only people I can imagine enjoying this film and I can’t recommend even a rental in all honesty. Watch Once Upon A Time In The West instead and experience one of the greatest films ever made. Then maybe chase it with Blade just for good measure.
And I’m Out.