Dan Wooster plays the Nomad/Gunman, who’s sent off into the badlands by his community as a very young man, apparently to serve as a protector of some sorts. He’s told to take good care of his horse. That as long as he lives, the horse will be by his side. Well, they’ve been in the badlands for 12 years now, and the Nomad is clearly tired of the gig.
So he hatches a plan with the Criminal (co-director Jeff Campagna), who’s supposed to shoot The Nomad — not mortally — but badly enough to fool the horse into thinking he’s dead. Then, perhaps, the Nomad can escape his solitary existence.
Ah, but there are about to be complications in the form of the Entrepreneur and his Servant. The former’s father has been murdered. So the two of them head into the badlands with a dual purpose — to find the person responsible and to expand his father’s railway West, past the edge of civilization.
Review:
OK, there are zeppelins and monorails and radio broadcasts, which is enough to tip you off that you’re not watching a movie of life in the 1860s. But you’ll probably have to head to the film’s website to sort out the rest.
The film is set sometime in the future. The badlands separate a utopia to the West from six major cities to the East. The Nomad’s job is to make sure no one crosses from the East to the West. Anyone committing violence in utopia is banished eastward.
So if you have to read the website to figure out what’s happening, just how bad is this? Not nearly as bad as it could have been, since the DVD interviews indicate there were only seven people on set much of the time. It’s stylish in spots, harkens back to Spaghetti Westerns (the film’s intro is a dead giveaway there) and the flashbacks make the film possible to follow, even if you aren’t sure exactly what time period we’re in.
Directed by:
Jeff Campagna, Matthew Campagna
Cast:
Dan Wooster … The Nomad
Mads Koudal … The Servant
Christopher Harrison … The Entrepreneur
Jeff Campagna … The Criminal
Matthew Campagna … Milton Joyce
Aaron Harrison … The Entrepreneur’s Father
Romas Stanulis … The Zeppelin Scout
Rosie … The Horse
Colm Feore … The Preacher
Runtime: 88 min.
Memorable lines:
The Nomad: “Your fly’s down.”
The Criminal: “I like the breeze.”
The Nomad: “You boys should have packed a little bit more for this trip, don’t you think?”
The Sherpa: “We didn’t think the journey would be so hard. There’s nothing out here to eat at all.”
The Nomad: “Right, I can see how the name badlands might have thrown you.”
The Nomad: “Two guns. Twelve shots. What’s the matter? Don’t trust the first six to get the job done?”
The Criminal: “Sometimes six ain’t enough to bring a man down the way he ought to be brought down.”
The Nomad: “I don’t see the need wasting 12 bullets on a single man.”
The Criminal: “You never shot a man who was worth it before. You see, the first two go in the hands so he can’t shoot back. The next two in the feet to bring him to his knees so he knows how it feels. The fifth takes his hat off, so he can feel the heat of a hard day’s work. Number six goes in the stomach cause it hurts like hell. The next four go in the spleen, the liver and both kidneys so he’s of no use to anyone after he’s dead. The 11th is the death blow, right to the heart. And the 12th, well the 12th goes in his throat so he can’t speak at his own judgment, so his soul will be damned, in this life and the next.”
){kind=link}