Well, that was a first. I was tired of watching this movie before the opening credits were over. Out of all the torturous, infuriating, depressing and defective cinema I have seen, nothing ever sucked so fast, so hard as The Last Rites of Ransom Pride. Fortunately, the rest of the film wasn't any worse that the very beginning or I would have had to garrote myself with a strand of dental floss. What the remaining inept mess did make me feel like doing is weeping for the future. There have always been terrible motion pictures but it used to be that the folks who made them knew what they were doing, they were just really bad at it. Now we get rubbish like this where the people who made it don't even know how to tell a story. They don't know how to construct a character. The don't know how to structure a plot. They don't know how to craft dialog. All they know how to do is copy what they've seen others do on screen without understanding any of it. It's like a chimp imitating a human
except the chimp is really, really stupid.
Let's start with those opening credits. Imagine every excessively edited montage you've ever seen, the worst bits of every horrendous music video to ever see the light of day, and multiply that by 2. Then you'll have some idea of how irritating these opening credits are. They'll make you want to physically assault the person who put them together for being so insultingly clichéd.
As for the story, a guy you won't care about (Scott Speedman) gets killed in Mexico in 1911. A girl you won't care about (Lizzy Caplan) agrees to buy back his body in exchange for the guy's brother (Jon Foster), who you also won't care about. The father of the two guys you won't care about (Dwight Yoakum) is kind of interesting, but only because he's played by Dwight Yoakum. As the girl and the brother you won't care about ride down South, the father and two others guys you won't care about (W. Earl Brown and Jason Priestly) follow. Not together, of course, because that might make some sense. No, the father and the two other guys travel separately, though they seem to take the same route. Maybe Yoakum insisted he share as little screen time as possible with Priestly.
The girl and the brother you won't care about run into some other people you won't care about (Peter Dinklage, Blu Mankuma and the Quijada brothers) and eventually hatch a scheme to steal back the corpse of that first guy you didn't care about. That plot is foiled when the father shows up and that leads to the girl and the brother having a final showdown with him. Now, since the father is built up as the main villain through the entire film up to that point, you'd think such a battle would signal the end of the movie.
Wrong! The Last Rites of Ransom Pride keeps going after killing its only interesting character and, instead, brings in yet another guy you don't care about (Kris Kristofferson) to have yet another showdown with the girl and the brother you won't care about. And that's the worst example in this whole pitiful production of how these filmmakers don't even know to tell a story. How can you not save the final battle with the father for the ending climax of the movie? How can you think bringing in a replacement at the end is going to work? I'm not even going to get into the laughable way they try to tie the final battle of the girl you won't care about with some other chick you won't care about together with this film's backstory prologue.
And while all of that nonsense in going on, you're visually battered by cutaways, flashbacks, flash forwards and other editing/narrative digressions that you've seen a jillion times before, but which are apparently supposed to be improved here through sheer mass tonnage.
From Lizzy Caplan using a grand total of one expression and one inflection for the entire flick, to wondering how much Scott Speedman wishes he'd been in the 3rd Underworld sequel instead of this thing, to realizing that even someone as talented at Peter Dinklage has to probably take every part he's offered because there just aren't that many roles for a little person, The Last Rites of Ransom Pride is a parade of discouraging failure. A stubbed toe is more entertaining than this thing because at least the pain doesn't last for over 80 minutes. Don't just skip it. Vault over it.
Let's start with those opening credits. Imagine every excessively edited montage you've ever seen, the worst bits of every horrendous music video to ever see the light of day, and multiply that by 2. Then you'll have some idea of how irritating these opening credits are. They'll make you want to physically assault the person who put them together for being so insultingly clichéd.
As for the story, a guy you won't care about (Scott Speedman) gets killed in Mexico in 1911. A girl you won't care about (Lizzy Caplan) agrees to buy back his body in exchange for the guy's brother (Jon Foster), who you also won't care about. The father of the two guys you won't care about (Dwight Yoakum) is kind of interesting, but only because he's played by Dwight Yoakum. As the girl and the brother you won't care about ride down South, the father and two others guys you won't care about (W. Earl Brown and Jason Priestly) follow. Not together, of course, because that might make some sense. No, the father and the two other guys travel separately, though they seem to take the same route. Maybe Yoakum insisted he share as little screen time as possible with Priestly.
The girl and the brother you won't care about run into some other people you won't care about (Peter Dinklage, Blu Mankuma and the Quijada brothers) and eventually hatch a scheme to steal back the corpse of that first guy you didn't care about. That plot is foiled when the father shows up and that leads to the girl and the brother having a final showdown with him. Now, since the father is built up as the main villain through the entire film up to that point, you'd think such a battle would signal the end of the movie.
Wrong! The Last Rites of Ransom Pride keeps going after killing its only interesting character and, instead, brings in yet another guy you don't care about (Kris Kristofferson) to have yet another showdown with the girl and the brother you won't care about. And that's the worst example in this whole pitiful production of how these filmmakers don't even know to tell a story. How can you not save the final battle with the father for the ending climax of the movie? How can you think bringing in a replacement at the end is going to work? I'm not even going to get into the laughable way they try to tie the final battle of the girl you won't care about with some other chick you won't care about together with this film's backstory prologue.
And while all of that nonsense in going on, you're visually battered by cutaways, flashbacks, flash forwards and other editing/narrative digressions that you've seen a jillion times before, but which are apparently supposed to be improved here through sheer mass tonnage.
From Lizzy Caplan using a grand total of one expression and one inflection for the entire flick, to wondering how much Scott Speedman wishes he'd been in the 3rd Underworld sequel instead of this thing, to realizing that even someone as talented at Peter Dinklage has to probably take every part he's offered because there just aren't that many roles for a little person, The Last Rites of Ransom Pride is a parade of discouraging failure. A stubbed toe is more entertaining than this thing because at least the pain doesn't last for over 80 minutes. Don't just skip it. Vault over it.