After Hours screening - review - SWEETWATER by Logan Miller and Noah Miller

‘Revenge is sweet’, reads the tagline for Sweetwater, the new feature by Logan Miller and Noah Miller. But what is it about this film that differentiates it from the countless other ones built around the same concept. Even the set-up of the blood triangle between a despicably evil and murderous religious leader, a free-dancing renegade and a former prostitute embittered by the murder of her husband set in the old American West seems all too familiar.

The Miller brothers must have known it too, in fact this was the case of a story that came to them rather than them coming up with the original subject. After making a few changes and in fact re-writing a new screenplay, it seems clear that they went for an eccentric approach that downright favours exaggeration over mere amplification. This results in a western, more a spaghetti one than a classic Americana one, where the characters are odd and bizarre to the point of cartoonish.

The renegade Sheriff Jackson (Ed Harris) is the first person to appear on the big screen as he howls at the sunrise and recites love poetry. On top of that, he spends half the time dancing around like a thoughtless free-bird yet he is unpredictably deadly when it comes to getting some killing done. In one hilarious scene, he beats the town’s useless sheriff up in order to take up his post by mixing dance and ass-whooping. When we first meet Sarah Ramirez, she leads a modest yet happy and peaceful life with her husband Miguel. After he is killed, she becomes the merciless object that once again brings an element of sexy female empowerment in a revenge flick. January Jones in this role recalls a mixture between Uma Thurman from Kill Bill and Claudia Cardinale in Once Upon a Time in the West (thus another connection with the Sergio Leone film apart from the similar storyline and the title Sweetwater that was also the name of the town being built in the spaghetti western masterpiece.)

Yet, for better or worse, it is the bad guy Prophet Josiah (Jason Isaacs) who steals the show. Thus we see the merciless Pastor, who calls himself Prophet Josiah, treat his flock like slaves and often punishing them in funny ways. For instance, in one scene one of his devoted followers complains because Prophet Josiah has not yet fulfilled a strange promise of providing them all with wives by covering him in sheep dung and threatening to cut his sack off and prevent his sinful thoughts. The paradox is that, on top of finding the words on the bible arousing and his cold-blooded taste for murder, he himself has numerous wives and an apparently insatiable lust for the sin of the flesh. Other small things accentuate his peculiarity and seemingly endless evil, such as his careful and calm diction to contrast to an obsession for an imported table.

Therefore, as one would expect, the film thrives on the dark humour that sometimes lets it slip into parody. But there is nothing necessarily wrong with that, in fact it adds to the entertainment value of the experience enhancing the already excitingly fast pace, a fun atmosphere of theatricality but also a particular attention for cinematic detail. An example of this would be the purple dress worn complete with sun umbrella sported by January Jones as Sarah used as a tool for seduction to lure her preys once she awakens her killing machine side, but also makes her stand out among similar characters that have ‘graced’ the big screen.

It’s also nice to see several references to classics and a cinematography that pays tribute to other films and Sweetwater’s own occasional absurdity by shifting the action from the film’s real world to an enhanced version of the imagined one by occasionally showing the characters in a mental natural habitat. It’s all in the name of good fun. The comic book film appeal and big cast are bound to give it some sort of attention.

Some may not be so willing to go along with the film’s ludicrousness and see it as nothing but a work of overblown silliness. Yet, when taken lightly and once Sweetwater’s nature and sense of humour is understood, this film by Logan and Noah Miller can be admired for being a kickass violent fun piece of modern western entertainment.