Jane Got A Gun (2016)

I wasn’t a huge fan. As a quick plot summary, Jane’s (Natalie Portman) husband is severely injured and being pursued by a gang of outlaws led by John Bishop (Ewan McGregor). Jane asks her ex (Joel Edgerton) for assistance. The rest of the film is then a somewhat drawn out set of civil-war era flashbacks explaining the circumstances behind the main character’s love-lives.

It struck me as a well-made film, with attractive locations and with some decent actors. My main issue was with the script. None of the characters seemed to have all that much characterization beyond the surface-level that they’d all suffered a lot due to the civil war and were somewhat embittered against each other. I also didn’t feel that the basic back-story was that interesting, and putting it in flashback and revealing it bit-by-bit didn’t really hide that too much. Finally (and a smaller complaint) was that the resolution of the love-triangle by one character conveniently dying seemed just too convenient. It certainly wouldn’t be the first (or last) film to attempt this, and the story was somewhat gender-reversed from it’s usual cliche (where the unsuitable girl will be killed off to let the hero go off guilt-free with the more suitable one), but it did feel like a bit of a cop-out.

It’s by no means the worst film ever: it’s pretty watchable even if the story never hugely gripped me. It sounds like it had taken a lot of effort to get made (changes in actors and directors over a number of years), but I’m not convinced that this is where it fell down.