Women should be featured more predominantly in the direction of Westerns; that shifts perception and makes a change in the content itself. The mini-series that stream best Godless (2017) is certainly one of the set things in motion, more recently, the English mini series with Emily Blunt was incredible as well. In the past few years, that has been fun to watch sizzling star Heather Graham for the first time genre, who recently starred in The Last Son and wrapped shooting The Gunslingers with Cage. And here comes Place of Bones, a western thriller.
Branded as a horror thriller, it is sad and rather unfortunate that Place of Bones is billed as a home invasion thriller and did not take advantage of some of these tropes. A quick summary of the story is that Place of Bones is directed by Audrey Cummings and written by Richard Taylor, terms western classic that is made easy to pronounce fully with place of bones. However, Tom Hopper can be a villain and the constant female empowerment brings a breath of fresh air to the genre.
Instead of Bones, Graham adopts a ‘likeable takes no nonsense mom’, this persona has not aged a bit from what she had fifty years ago in Austin Powers. Precisely, the director knows what he/she is doing and gives them interesting symbolic names, as in gypsy extremities, but we come across a battered middle-aged woman facing slavin lawless life at the beginning of her Western. She is in the shroud of a widow, there is a ‘place of bones’ where the graves of her husband, who committed suicide, were only a few feet from their house in the mountains.
This is an unfortunate view, but it is also a calm one, for Pandora is resided in a calm and steady life where she has a teenage child Hester (Brielle Robillard) living with her. Graham is her Duran Duran; he is beautifully reliable in her every appearance on any screen. Here, she is limited to looking after her one and only daughter and preserving her own life with the help of a very convincing Southern drawl, or rather yelling, race against time as most good western thrillers would be happy to give expectations.
The danger arrives with an extremely injured criminal who later we find out is named Calhoun (Corin Nemec). Perhaps Pandora is already aware of the saying, “When death comes knocking at your door,” and it is no surprise that Calhoun’s surprise visit is sooner than welcomed because bearing a bullet shredded leg, he almost faints at her doorstep.
There is no doubt that Pandora has a moral center—for that is another reason why we approve of the strict mother figure in this story — which is why she cannot be faulted for dumping Calhoun at the first chance she gets. She tends to him and provides food for him even though she does so knowing that the Place of Bones has a constant undercurrent of female strength and that’s why she, Pandora, is not just going to submit to the sitting male. Business means serious in this instance, as Graham’s beautiful but penetrating eyes demonstrate—does she age, by the way? She looks so young.
She feels that he should be taken out of the equation as quickly as possible, with her IQ staying neatly above average and seeing what would happen to Calhoun when he woke up and started weaseling out of his “how did you get so low” story. As we learn finally, Calhoun is on the run from a nastiest bank robber and his criminal henchmen. The boss who is looking to destroy Calhoun is called Bear John, and he is portrayed with a fierce intensity by The Umbrella Academy actor Tom Hopper, quite the opposite from his recent adorably charming love comedy Space Cadet.
At least Hopper’s Bear John causes a welcome and wholesome shoot ’em up in Place of Bones. At this time, some fears might arise among the viewers, especially with regard to how fast things have sadly been turning out at Pandora’s home, always more or less to steady there. It is indeed comedic when this even when left out, Calhoun and her engage each other in, Southern drawl and insults, once, but then the movie takes altogether in fairness much much time too long too come almost effectively to this stage. Therefore, we do not possess a reasonable amount of Tom Hopper’s great villain.
But when the ultimate clash finally comes, it solidifies something, in Pandora’s case, very passionate, very fierce spirit, and she more than manages to cope. Emotions concerning violence in the screen are always cathartic, and it is rewarding to witness Pandora beating her sorrow out. But such catharsis must plus minus be within the movie boundaries so coming upon a dessert-like cap is quite typical. It was clear the movie needed to head towards more extreme graphic violence that was promised in trailers and Place of Bones was simply nowhere near the level and creativity of great Western thrillers one must see but regardless it is an alright flick focused on life of a widow.
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