The West and the Ruthless

A man and two women are on a carriage with a driver who appears to be taking them in circles. Eventually the man stops him, and whips him asking for the reasons behind his actions. Another man and woman watching from the distance shoot both men, despite recognizing the driver, tie up one woman leaving her for dead, and kidnap the other who is pregnant. The West and the Ruthless (who thought that was a good title??) takes all of these characters as well as two brothers who run a brothel and tells an interesting story surrounding this event shown out of order.

This film is pretty amateurish from top to bottom. There is some weak and wooden acting, muddy visuals on DVD, and a score that's not bad, but doesn't really fit with the film. Fortunately, the story is interesting enough to overcome some of these issues. A storyline involving a former black slave (Danny Brown, who is easily the best part of the film) and one of the brothers (Dan Fowlks) is the highlight of the story, while one involving the pregnant woman (Rebecca Gomberg) and a man trying to save her (Alexander Harris) is pretty painful with some really poor acting. The sequence also hits right when the story should be picking up steam, but instead stops it right in its tracks as the characters spend far too much time literally just standing there and talking.

Because of the design of the plot some scenes do repeat themselves as it tries to tie everything together. Everything does tie together in the end, but it happens so quickly it's almost laughable. The credits features some nice hand drawn style portraits of the actors and stay tuned for some silly outtakes post credits. The West and the Ruthless (arg!! Such a terrible title!!) is certainly far from perfect, but if you are a fan of westerns and have appreciation for something that at least tries to mix things up then this may be worth a quick look.