Rating: 
Summary: A truly different western
Review: Well...I reckon you either love this film or hate it. Me, I liked it a whole lot. OK, you got yer Vince Vaughan, who was pretty much miscast, yep, that's true. But aside from good ole Vince, every other actor is gosh-darned good and the story is pretty strong, too. This Val Casey fella, that's who Dwight plays--a marshal in a small Arizona town--he's a lover AND a fighter. First seen smooching with one gal, less than halfway through the film, he's makin' goo-goo eyes at another one (Bridget Fonder, er, Fonda), and that's just the warm mushy side of Val.Seems that Val was raised by a family of no account varmints, the meanest of which, Vince Vaughan's character (don't rightly recollect his name), is kind of a brother to Val, thanks to Val's own ma and pa having been killed off when he was about knee high to a butter churn. Now this Vince character has some nasty brothers and a mean old paw too, as well as a purdy frustrated sister, if you catch my drift. This western has just about everything--Val's sidekick wears a skirt (you gotta hear the explanation to believe it), Billy Bob Thornton plays an eastern dandy who may or may not be straight, Bud Cort is a real whiny, bald gummint man, and Peter Fonda runs a kind of carnival with hot air balloons. Plus, lots of gun play and stuff. Hey, for my money, this beats out most of yer spaghetti westerns any day..
Rating: 
Summary: Like a bad dream that doesn't feel any better after waking.
Review: What a strange movie. It took exactly one hour and twenty minutes for anything to happen. Until then, its pace was that of a Tree Sloth, only less deliberate. This western has an all-star cast, though. The always-wonderful Billy Bob Thorton plays an ever so elegant, overly-eloquent Doc Holiday type, though he shuffles off before any real action takes place. Paul Reubens plays a convincing surprisingly handsome misfit. Dwight Yoakam plays a funny looking guy much in need of a hat. Peter Fonda shows up, then dies. Bridget Fonda shows up, administers an impressive and devastating blow to the groin of one of the bad guys, from which he never rightly recovers. And Vince Vaughn plays a mean, sombero-wearing sonnamabitch. There is even a deputy who wears a dress, though, you never really care enough to find out why he does such a thing. They all take turns waiting for something to happen, they talk before the one hour and twenty minute fun part, but what they said didn't really matter. Just a bunch of names that were hard to remember. I counted no less than four highly inappropriate love scenes, that seemed as passionate and timely as any set of grandparents one can think of. There are a whole slew of unimportant characters, some live and some die. Some of these characters are sporadically consumed with a dizzying range of emotion that I couldn't understand. One of which is a deaf girl whom you cannot help but envy, for she doesn't have to bare the burden of the dull sonorific confusion. It seems Dwight Yoakams, who also directed this feature, main goal was to shoot and kill every actor who was more suited to his craft. Jealousy runs rampant among thespians. I give it two stars because of the star-studded cast, they were fun to watch even though they sort of went down with the ship, except for Billy Bob Thorton, who didn't die, and left, presumably to make a better movie. I think the only way they were able to pay for these expensive actors was to not pay a decent editor, who could have successfully trimmed this film down to a slim country music video.
Rating: 
Summary: "Hell" is right!
Review: When musicians turn their attention to moviemaking, their efforts are usually greeted with the same suspicions faced by TV stars who decide to cash in on their fame by recording a few songs. That's because frequently singers who step behind the camera create a travesty like Prince's "Under the Cherry Moon" or, even worse, Dwight Yoakam's "South of Heaven West of Hell," a 140-minute home movie with some major names (Vince Vaughn, Bridget Fonda, Billy Bob Thornton, Paul Reubens, etc.) obviously doing their friend a big favor. Yoakam and Stan Bertheaud's screenplay operates in two speeds: listless or mindlessly violent. When it's not forcing the actors to engage in arid, pointless conversations, the script is forcing us to witness such juicy sights as a man's crotch being whipped with a belt and a hot fireplace poker, a deaf child being fondled lasciviously by a drooling gunslinger and a [...]being [...] with a broken oil lamp. As if the mutilation wasn't nauseating enough, Yoakam later lets us watch as the outlaw's nether regions are repaired with a needle, some thread and a bloody bucket of flesh scraps. The meandering plot involves sheriff Valentine Casey (Yoakam) who's trying to steer clear of the crooked clan that raised him. When foster brother Taylor (Vaughn) and his motley crew ride into Valentine's territory, the lawman goes on the lam, only to face the desperados again while he's trying to woo a travelling actress named Addy (Fonda). After Addy nearly dies at the hands of Taylor's gang, Valentine sets up his own kind of family reunion. Its over-reliance on medium close-ups, erratic pace and unsteady tone mark "Hell" as the work of a fledgling director, one who has only the sketchiest idea of how to put his dreams on the screen. Long stretches of the movie seem half-improvised or, more to the point, made up on the spot while the camera rolled. Yoakam, who was quite good in "Sling Blade," reads his dialogue here with little gusto, while Vaughn appears to constantly be on the verge of snickering. Only Fonda, who plays her role straight, and Thornton, who sports flowing blond locks that seem borrowed from Fabio, escape embarrassment.
Rating:
Summary: Quite possibly the worst movie of all time.
Review: Words cant express just how truly bad this thing is. I'm at a loss actually. 1 pitiful undeserving star.
Rating:
Summary: It is an insult to bad movies to claim this is one of the...
Review: WORST of all time....but sadly, that is an understatement. Now I know why Dwight Yoakum hid out under that hat all those years....he's bald! Match that with his Barney Fife frame and he cuts one intimidating figure as a "good guy" Marshall who didnt buy into his family's whole death and dismemberment gig. Billy Bob Thornton's impression of Courtney Love is uniquely weird. And I used to think Vince Vaughn was cool...well, I got news for you Vince, maybe it's time for Swingers VI? I keep asking myself how so much talent could lend itself to such a historically awful movie. Well, blame Dwight. Maybe somebody a little higher up on the macho scale could have pulled this off, say somebody like Liberace or Truman Capote? Except for the features torturous 133 minutes, all in all a good DVD. Lots of extras, good soundtrack, commentary, deleted scenes too if you find yourself all that curious about this thing.
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