The James Marsh film review archive

Western

  • Duck, You Sucker!

    I had put off watching Sergio Leone’s final western for many many years, believing it to be a lesser film in the director’s canon, but in fact it’s an incredibly… Read More

  • A Million Ways To Die In The West

    Definitely has moments of laugh out loud humour throughout, but in between (and some of the gaps between laughs are agonisingly long) we are forced to watch what is simply… Read More

  • The Lone Ranger

    While there’s no denying the Disney/Depp relationship went stale a long time ago and his clownish buffoonery has entirely consumed the once-great screen actor, there is still plenty to appreciate… Read More

  • The Searchers

    Some of you may remember that I watched this as recently as January, in preparation for a feature I was writing for the Hong Kong Film Archive. Well, now the… Read More

  • Heaven’s Gate

    Another of the grand restored classics to play at this year’s HKIFF was the fully restored 216-minute version of Michael Cimino’s calamitous Western. This was not the first time I… Read More

  • Once Upon a Time in the West

    After completing his “Dollars Trilogy”, Sergio Leone was done with the Western, until Paramount offered him a huge budget and the opportunity to work with his favourite actor, Henry Fonda.… Read More

  • The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

    Sergio Leone’s third and final chapter in his loose “dollars trilogy” with Clint Eastwood is also the first of two back-to-back masterpieces of the genre from the king of the… Read More

  • Rio Bravo

    In preparation for a piece I’m writing for the HK Film Archive, I’m re-visiting a number of classic Westerns this week. After John Ford’s The Searchers, next on my list… Read More

  • The Searchers

    First watched this as a teenager and failed to get too much from it beyond the spectacle of Monument Valley. The new HD restoration makes the film worth re-watching for… Read More

  • Django Unchained

    Quentin Tarantino delivers another rip-roaring slice of reverential exploitation Cinema, this time dressing up a condemnation of the American slave trade as a blood-soaked spaghetti western. Read my full review… Read More

  • REVIEW: Django Unchained

    REVIEW: Django Unchained

    It was a foregone conclusion that Quentin Tarantino would one day produce his take on the spaghetti western. There are glimpses of this distinctive genre’s style in many of his… Read More

  • High Noon

    Gary Cooper plays the newly-married Marshal, set to leave town and start a new life with pacifist Quaker wife, Grace Kelly, when he learns a vicious criminal is heading into… Read More

  • The Last Stand

    Arnold Schwarzenegger stars in his first leading role in almost a decade, as a veteran small-town sheriff forced into action by a South American drug lord, who is heading for… Read More

  • REVIEW: Cowboys & Aliens

    Coming off the back of two hugely successful Iron Man movies for Marvel Studios, director Jon Favreau chose a high concept comic book adaptation as his next project, focusing on… Read More