Famed veteran filmmaker Walter Hill (of The Warriors notoriety) brings no-frills, old school style to Dead for a Dollar. His barebones approach is a nearly perfect fit for the Old West shoot ’em up where disputes are handled by pistols drawn, villains twirl their mustaches, women and people of color are to be mistrusted…you know the drill. Hill has gathered an all-star cast to take part in this gunslinging affair, but it didn’t pay off as listless performances have it pushing up daisies practically from the start.
The worst offender is Christoph Waltz, who plays truth-seeking bounty hunter Max Borlund. A legendary shootist who values honesty and despises liars, Max is hired by rich husband Martin Kidd (Hamish Linklater) to find his wife Rachel (Rachel Brosnahan), who he says has been kidnapped by her Black student Elijah (Brandon Scott) and taken to Mexico. It’s a long, arduous journey across the desert to get to Mexico, but Max has help from Sgt. Amos Poe (Warren Burke), a Black soldier who knows Elijah quite well and vouches for him.
Pretty straight forward stuff, right? Well, there’s a lot more to this overstuffed adventure. Willem Dafoe plays flamboyant ex-con Joe Cribbens, who makes it his life goal to duel Max to the death. And finally, a mustache-twirling, cigar-chewing villain named Tiberio (Benjamin Bratt) who appears dropped in so there can be a fierce town-wide shootout as the movie’s one big action sequence.
A sufficiently lean script keeps the allegiances shifting. Someone is always on the verge of getting filled with lead. That’s the way a Western should be. It doesn’t take long to discern that Martin is a liar, a “bad man” as Rachel puts it, and that her relationship with Elijah is romantic. The big question is how this information impacts Max’s moral code. Does he fulfil the job he’s been hired for? Or does he go after the guy who lied to him?
The problem, as previously mentioned, is that nobody seems to care that they’re acting in Dead for a Dollar. Waltz, who has been living off of Inglourious Basterds for 13 years, has a nasty habit of phoning in his performances when lacking motivation. He’s so sleepy here he could’ve passed for a rolling tumbleweed. His disinterest seems to have impacted his co-stars, as well. Even Dafoe is pretty terrible in a ridiculously flashy role he should’ve eaten up with gusto. Hill probably doesn’t have a lot of features left in his career, and he deserves to go out with better support than he received for Dead for a Dollar.
Dead for a Dollar is open in theaters now.
