This movie actually deserves a '2.' I give it one half-point bonus for being a low-budget production (they tried) and another half-point bonus for clever packaging mentioning their independent film-festival awards, rather than anything about the actual movie inside.
This is quite clever of them, for you see there ain't much movie there. Westender is an off riff on the medieval/fantasy genre: it's the middle part of a trilogy which doesn't exist. Our protagonist, a Doughty Knight (tm) is wandering the countryside. As he goes from minor scrape to minor scrape, he gets visions of some mysterious past 'failing' so we can piece together that he USED to be some big hotshot in the army, but quit when his sweetie was torched as a witch or some similar thing. By film's end, he has decided to recommit to his knighthood, and take the army back to victory.
But that's it. We never really see the initial problems which led to his downfall. We never see what happens once he takes the reigns of the army again. All we see is this kind of lumpy-faced guy lurching drunkenly around the forest, occasionally in grave-robbed armor, weeping about what a failure he is. Sometimes these lurching scenes take place on sand dunes. Sometimes in waterfalls. Sometimes they last for up to fifteen minutes, with no dialog whatsoever.
Verdict: boring. I am all for psychological exploration, but to indulge in it I have to GIVE A DAMN about the character. I don't, in this case. Oh, and special anti-kudos to the hapless dweeb who plays our hero's sometimes traveling companion and minstrel: poor delivery doesn't magically improve when it's delivered in a louder whine.
Grade: D/D-
This is quite clever of them, for you see there ain't much movie there. Westender is an off riff on the medieval/fantasy genre: it's the middle part of a trilogy which doesn't exist. Our protagonist, a Doughty Knight (tm) is wandering the countryside. As he goes from minor scrape to minor scrape, he gets visions of some mysterious past 'failing' so we can piece together that he USED to be some big hotshot in the army, but quit when his sweetie was torched as a witch or some similar thing. By film's end, he has decided to recommit to his knighthood, and take the army back to victory.
But that's it. We never really see the initial problems which led to his downfall. We never see what happens once he takes the reigns of the army again. All we see is this kind of lumpy-faced guy lurching drunkenly around the forest, occasionally in grave-robbed armor, weeping about what a failure he is. Sometimes these lurching scenes take place on sand dunes. Sometimes in waterfalls. Sometimes they last for up to fifteen minutes, with no dialog whatsoever.
Verdict: boring. I am all for psychological exploration, but to indulge in it I have to GIVE A DAMN about the character. I don't, in this case. Oh, and special anti-kudos to the hapless dweeb who plays our hero's sometimes traveling companion and minstrel: poor delivery doesn't magically improve when it's delivered in a louder whine.
Grade: D/D-