In many Western lore, cowboy legends about lawmen, outlaws, and life in the Old Frontier period have been mostly centered around Caucasians. Very obscure do we ever examine the Wild West where African-Americans have the chance to tell their own tales about them running their own cities, laying down their own laws and fighting off against outlaws who want to stir trouble in their neck of the woods. There's not much reading material about this subject and very little Hollywood movies are ever made about African-Americans striving in the rough scenery in the Old Frontier.
"Posse" was a pivotal step to tell a great story in this compelling and refreshing story that is loaded with originality. It had potential to be a really good story, sadly director Mario Van Peebles tends to go overboard by practically rubbing the story right in-your-face to get his message across. At times the historical references become so overly done, the actual story becomes secondary which can be very distracting and disjointed. It may look good for a documentary, but for a movie, it makes the entire story very thin. Aside from that the quick-cuts from scenes are very distracting and the noisy backgrounds are also too loud that it upstages the dialogue provided.
Van Peebles is without a doubt an excellent director. He was outstanding in the 1991 film "New Jack City." So where are the flaws in "Posse"? Did he feel that the dryness from the basic story needed some much-needed tweaking on the visual references? Did he just lean towards the style and forgot that a story to develop we also need substancebecause were weren't getting any here? Set after the Spanish-American War U.S. Army 10th Calvary Regiment led by Jessie Lee (Van Peebles)joins forces with Weezie (Charles Lane), Angel (Tone Loc), Obobo (TinyLister) and Caucasian ally Little J (Stephen Baldwin) courageously step up to winback their city from the corruption from racist outlaw Colonel Graham (Billy Zane). The fight scenes feel very anti-climactic and the soundtrack just carries on like it's a an overlong music video.
Once the war is over, the Calvary heads home to Freemanville, where Jessie grew up. Only to realize that his community has changed and is now been taken over by racist neighbors and a law enforcement that caters to white people. Therefore, the posse joins forces to restore their town and to wipe out the corruption.
For a story of this magnitude, it had a lot of great material for a an interesting and provocative Western story that has never been looked upon. But instead we get a simplified, lazily scripted visually-laden shoot-em-up fight between good against evil. The story line is never in full focus and the characters are not that easy to care about because the development is poorly structured. It's just too dependent on action but it's all without purpose.
You've heard of the quote, "too many cooks spoil the broth". Well Van Peebles casts a plethora of big name stars from Isaac Hayes to Blair Underwood from Pam Grier to Nipsy Russell. Well as big as those names are, they don't really have much to do here and that an extra would've been better cast in their roles.
When all the dust settles all the message we get is that white people then and now continually deprive the black man from equal opportunity, no matter how much they have succeeded over years. The freely utilized preachy ways were handed out to what the story failed to offer. If these closing messages were with us the whole time, "Posse" would've been a better film instead of succumbing to an endless array of sloganeering.
"Posse" was a pivotal step to tell a great story in this compelling and refreshing story that is loaded with originality. It had potential to be a really good story, sadly director Mario Van Peebles tends to go overboard by practically rubbing the story right in-your-face to get his message across. At times the historical references become so overly done, the actual story becomes secondary which can be very distracting and disjointed. It may look good for a documentary, but for a movie, it makes the entire story very thin. Aside from that the quick-cuts from scenes are very distracting and the noisy backgrounds are also too loud that it upstages the dialogue provided.
Van Peebles is without a doubt an excellent director. He was outstanding in the 1991 film "New Jack City." So where are the flaws in "Posse"? Did he feel that the dryness from the basic story needed some much-needed tweaking on the visual references? Did he just lean towards the style and forgot that a story to develop we also need substancebecause were weren't getting any here? Set after the Spanish-American War U.S. Army 10th Calvary Regiment led by Jessie Lee (Van Peebles)joins forces with Weezie (Charles Lane), Angel (Tone Loc), Obobo (TinyLister) and Caucasian ally Little J (Stephen Baldwin) courageously step up to winback their city from the corruption from racist outlaw Colonel Graham (Billy Zane). The fight scenes feel very anti-climactic and the soundtrack just carries on like it's a an overlong music video.
Once the war is over, the Calvary heads home to Freemanville, where Jessie grew up. Only to realize that his community has changed and is now been taken over by racist neighbors and a law enforcement that caters to white people. Therefore, the posse joins forces to restore their town and to wipe out the corruption.
For a story of this magnitude, it had a lot of great material for a an interesting and provocative Western story that has never been looked upon. But instead we get a simplified, lazily scripted visually-laden shoot-em-up fight between good against evil. The story line is never in full focus and the characters are not that easy to care about because the development is poorly structured. It's just too dependent on action but it's all without purpose.
You've heard of the quote, "too many cooks spoil the broth". Well Van Peebles casts a plethora of big name stars from Isaac Hayes to Blair Underwood from Pam Grier to Nipsy Russell. Well as big as those names are, they don't really have much to do here and that an extra would've been better cast in their roles.
When all the dust settles all the message we get is that white people then and now continually deprive the black man from equal opportunity, no matter how much they have succeeded over years. The freely utilized preachy ways were handed out to what the story failed to offer. If these closing messages were with us the whole time, "Posse" would've been a better film instead of succumbing to an endless array of sloganeering.