Where I Watched It: Hulu

English Audio Description?: No

I think one of the tidbits that hulu refuses to acknowledge in its steadfast refusal to acquire audio description for non hulu programming (or non Disney/ABC/FX), is that a lot of times they are the streaming debut for a movie. So for anyone who was remotely interested in this Nicolas Cage western, sucks to be you. There’s no audio description.

Westerns without audio description are a shame because they usually have some truly great cinematography, some serious potential in costume and set design, and likely a few well choreographed gunfights. And this seems to have all of that. It’s also one of those “particular set of skills” type films, where Cage’s character is a badass, and when you mess with his family, you get the horns.

I’ll say that one of the great things about Cage is that he is always fully committed to whatever project, even if it sucks. It’s why he has fans, because even though the film that surrounds him is full of some of the worst actors in Hollywood, he’s good. And that makes the film at least watchable on some level. Ryan Keira Armstrong, also known as the little asskicker who put the Razzies in their place, is also good here. She was good in Firestarter too, they were just being fuckers.

Everyone else feels like they walked out of an acting class. there’s a role here I’m sure Ben Foster would have loved, had someone had the foresight to offer it to him, but alas…

It’s not a great film, and without audio description, it’s a chore. I’d like to say this film is made well enough to say that the thing that’s missing is accessibility, but i think even with audio description, this would still be awful, just slightly more intelligible.

Cage has really been pulling me back in recently with roles in pig and Massive Talent, and I was rooting for this. Sadly, it’s more hot garbage he can’t seem to say No to.

Final Grade: unwatchable (due to lack of audio description), though technically it’s dumb enough that you can follow it, so I’m also going to say this gets a D. Two grades for the price of one.