Hickok (2017)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simply A Masterpiece

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Sometimes you take a chance on a movie you never heard of and you find a little gem. Other times, you end up wasting an hour and half of your life like you do when you watch this movie.It's rare that I watch a movie where the writing and direction is so bad that I actually looked up who the writer (Michael Lanahan) and director (Timothy Woodward Jr.) were for no other reason than to make sure I never watch anything from either of them again. It's almost like the director read the script, knew it was going to suck, then decided to see if he could one up the script by directing a jumpy movie with no flow. The writing was so bad that you could almost feel the actors not wanting to say the lines. some of the scenes were so stupid you had to actually laugh, like when the bad guys shoot up Wild Bill's house, throw a stick of dynamite in there, then when the dynamite gets thrown out by Bill, one of them goes, "We must've got him!" Sure buddy, most dead guys throw dynamite back. Then there was the rip off of Gladiator where Trace Adkins' character brings his fiance and son in for a little questioning before eventually smacking them both. The makeup person, who may have also been the director based off the ridiculous "black eye" they put on Cameron Richardson after getting smacked, seemed to want to one up the other ridiculousness by putting on a "black eye" that basically made it look like she got hit by a 2x4 across the side of her face.And who did the casting? Luke Hemsworth looks nothing like Wild Bill Hickok and I'm telling you, he's definitely the worse acting Hemsworth and that's saying something. Kris Kristofferson has a look on face in every scene like he knows he's just phoning this gig in and Trace Adkins just is not a very believable bad guy. Maybe it's those commercials he does for Wounded Warrior. It's hard to take him as a bad guy and he doesn't have the acting chops to pull it off.Bruce Dern? His yellow teeth were the best part of his role. He was also involved in one the dumbest scenes of the movie and that's saying something. Hickok tries to distract the kid (who was randomly shot when some guys come into town shooting their guns) by telling him some dumb story while Dern (the doctor) takes a bullet. It might have made more sense if the doctor actually took the bullet out while the kld was being distracted but no, he waits until the story is over and then the kids screams in agony as the idiot takes out the bullet.Want to know why the movie gets two stars vs one? There's a nice sunset scene with a train in the beginning that fools the viewer into thinking this movie might be decent, but alas, it's mirage as you soon enough will be inundated with dialog a 10-year old might write for his school play. Oh, and there's a nice side boob scene with Cameron Richardson. That's about it!

Lazy, terrible script, one dimentional characters, flat and boring. Exactly the same kind of stupidity yyou find in series like CSI and similar garbage.

The movie starts with the Confederate army using a gatling gun and goes downhill from there. A few union commanders used their own money to purchase 12 of these guns. The US Army didn't officially buy any until 1866. The Confederates never had any. Then there's the problem with John Wesley Hardin. First of all, his alias was Wesley Clemmons, but the movie implies it was the other way around. And second, Hardin was never Hickok's deputy. Finally, the climatic battle between the villain and the hero. It happened on the street not in the saloon and only Poe was killed, except for a real deputy that Hickok shot on accident. I usually try to give Hollywood some leeway when it comes to historical accuracy, but this is just too much.

New westerns in this day and age are a rare breed indeed, and many of these new westerns aren't very good at all. So although I am a fan of westerns, I wasn't expecting too much with "Hickok", especially seeing that it bypassed theaters and went straight to DVD. But while I wouldn't say that I was pleasantly surprised by the end results, I did all the same think that it's a decent movie that should please western fans. It is a low budget affair, and sometimes the lack of ample funds does rear its head (particularly during the Civil War battle scene that opens the movie.) But director Timothy Woodward Jr. for the most part manages to squeeze every last penny out the limited budget, and the movie generally looks decent, such as with the professional lighting and photography. The script does play out in a way that won't be surprising at all to anyone like me who has seen their share of westerns. Yet all the same, the story is fairly compelling. The performances are good, and the scenes play out in a way that is convincing enough. It end up being almost comforting to see familiar elements again. The only real stumble the movie makes is during the action sequences; they are somewhat confusing at times, though fortunately there are not many of them. If you like westerns, and don't mind seeing familiar characters and situations for the umpteenth time, chances are you'll find this a competent rehash.