Jane Got a Gun takes long pauses in the action to chronicle through flashbacks how this love triangle comes to defend a single home. The film’s greatest surprise is that these unabashedly emotional flashbacks work.
Maybe Natalie didn't ever really really occupy this character, but she did pretty well. For an actress who always seems so young, it was nice to see her be a mature woman. The other characters were first-rate, IMO. Joel Edgerton has quite a future as an actor and writer, and Noah Emmerich played it perfectly. He could've over-dramatized that role; maybe the director had a say in that, yeah? I reckon. I thought the pacing of the story was perfect, and enjoyed the flashbacks. Finally, the cinematography was beautiful; this movie is loaded with jaw-dropping shots. Oh yeah, all the sleazeball bad guys were very entertaining! Holy Toledo, what a bunch of creeps!
The arid landscapes are handsomely shot, the set-pieces punchy and intimate, and the performances robust, with Portman reminding us just how good an actress she is as her no-nonsense Jane gets on with the business of survival.
Since the film’s last-minute rewrites, casting switcheroos, and musical chairs behind the camera are irrelevant to the actual quality of the movie, I’ll avoid rehashing them here, save to say that the disarray shows on screen.
Like the old westerns of the John Wayne days, this movie was very similar in style. Not a lot of talking, not a lot of doing, just getting it done. There was a back story of course, and we see it slowly in flashback, and it gives meat to the "cut to the bone" story line. About the only change made for today is the heroine; in the old days, it would have been a young boy.
First of all, if you want to see something new and fresh in this movie - there is nothing really. Ok, I agree, movies should not be rated only in comparison with other movies but on their own too - so, first of all, while acting is not bad, the story itself is not that entertaining and actually is quite predictable from the beginning to the end. Even some twists they try to put in there do not feel like twists and you feel like - ah, whatever, this does not really change things here. It was ok and well acted, but certainly not a movie to remember for a long time and it lacked something in the storyline to be a greater movie
Production Company
1821 Pictures,
Boies Schiller Entertainment,
Eaves Movie Ranch,
Handsomecharlie Films,
Relativity Media,
Scott Pictures,
Straight Up Films,
Unanimous Pictures,
WeatherVane Productions