Film review by Andrew D. Wells
Outlaw Johnny Black: Michael Jai White
Jessie Lee: Anika Noni Rose
Bessie Lee: Erica Ash
Reverend Percy: Byron Minns
Brett Clayton: Chris Browning
Tom Sheally: Barry Bostwick
Bill Bassett: Randy Couture
U.S. Marshall Cove: Kevin Chapman
Samuel Goldwyn Films presents a film directed by Michael Jai White. Written by White and Byron Minns. Running time: 130 min. Rated PG-13 (for violence, strong language and some sexual material).
When is a spoof not a spoof? When does a serious movie become a spoof of itself? These are questions the filmmakers of the new western spoof Outlaw Johnny Black have clearly never asked themselves and probably never even occurred to them as possible problems in their dreams to make a blaxsploitation-style western genre spoof.
The fact is Outlaw Johnny Black is a bad movie. It doesn’t really matter whether it is a spoof or not. It doesn’t matter what genre it is. It doesn’t matter who made it or that it is focused on black matters. This is a movie with jokes in it that aren’t funny. It has a plot that doesn’t make any sense despite its clichéd details and simple intentions. Its characters are inconsistent and too broadly drawn. It is offensive in a way that fails to serve its comedic purposes. It is sloppily made and lazy in its execution. It has a couple of chuckles in it, but for the most part fails its audience in every way.
Made in the style of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western with heavy 70s blaxploitation influences, the story follows Johnny Black, an outlaw on a mission of revenge to kill Brett Clayton, who murdered Black’s father in front of him when he was a child. Right away the movie runs into awkwardness with its slow pacing which seems to be setting up some sort of joke about anticipation in the western genre, but the joke never seems to pay off.
The awkwardness continues when Black’s better nature distracts him from his personal mission of revenge to rescue some young indigenous people from roughnecks. For some reason, one of these “indians” is played by a clearly caucasian actor. I feel like this is supposed to be some commentary joke on Hollywood’s past reputation for casting non-native actors to play native roles, but what the joke is isn’t exactly clear. Plus, there are many more offenses derived from Native American culture to come. Perhaps I’m just not in tune enough with the cultural comedy here, but I fail to see how this depiction of one culture is not just as offensive as the depiction of African American culture that is being frequently criticized by this same movie.
Still in the opening moments of this movie we get an example of another problem with the movie’s comedic take. At the end of a scene in which Black brutally beats and murders the men abusing the Native Americans, the town’s sheriff approaches Black and he shoots the hat off of the sheriff’s head. The sheriff is so surprised by this that he has a heart attack and dies. Black is then arrested for killing the sheriff, no mention of the 5 to 6 other men he killed. White as Black keeps bringing it up that he “killed a hat,” making his arrest and subsequent sentencing of death wrongful. No one else seems to care, but White as the screenwriter seems to think this notion of him killing a hat and having to die for it is hilarious. At least I assume he does, since he has his own character repeat this notion several times until he’s eventually rescued at his hanging by the two Natives he saved. Does dying by a heart attack in a gunfight make that death funny?
The spoof elements butt heads with the serious narrative as Black makes his escape. White uses a trope of the western genre here of being lost without water in the wilderness. Again it seems as if he’s setting up a joke about this particular trope that never pays off. Once he does find water, his horse collapses just as he gets some water in a bucket to give to the poor animal. As he tries to revive the animal, the horse literally kicks the bucket out of his hand. Ha. Ha. Is that the joke all that set up was for? Really?! A joke I might’ve made in kindergarten? Sure, Mel Brooks made a living off of those jokes. Even the horse’s leg that kicks out is clearly fake, like a Mel Brooks movie, but nothing else here is anything like the Brooks genius. What is White thinking? Then… Then!!! His hero goes off wandering in the desert again for another eternity. He just had water! He just had a creek! He just had vegetation and fire wood! What the hell?!
Black eventually crosses paths with the Reverend Percy, played by White’s co-writer Byron Minns. This introduction is one of the few genuine scenes in the film. They don’t make the chlichéd mistake of making them either instant friends nor heated enemies that you know will eventually become friends. They have their differences, but seem willing to respect each other’s positions with the understanding that they won’t be in each other’s lives forever. Percy is on his way to his new parish and fledgling love, Bessie. It is therefore unfortunate, when he appears to be killed by natives the next morning. Black, however, doesn’t miss his opportunity to go further into hiding by assuming Percy’s identity and taking his position at the parish in Hope Springs.
You know they’re not going to use such a clichéd and on point name as Hope Springs in a spoof and not have some fun with it. Nope! Not these guys. There were plenty of points where they could’ve mentioned someone’s hope springing to the call. Too obvious, I guess. Yes, far too obvious to try and make the audience laugh with a spoof.
Turns out Percy isn’t dead. His bible blocked the arrow. Check cliché. No joke. Turns out there’s a cattle baron trying to take over the church land in Percy’s new parish. Check cliché. Beyond a narrow eye placement, the land barron is given absolutely nothing funny to do. And here’s the thing, this land barron is played by Barry Bostwick, the star of easily two of the most cult goofy bad movies around, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Megaforce. You really can’t find a way in a spoof to make his character funny? They have the gaul to reference Mongo’s horse punching scene with one of their many Native American offenses, but they can’t summon the past of Brad Majors - A Hero?
The offenses and missed opportunities in this movie are so numerous that I could spend pages upon pages exploring them and asking “Why?” I’ll only mention one more, however, the “score”. I place the word score in quotation marks because all of the music cues are culled from other sources. Michael Breardon is credited as “head composer”, a title I can’t ever recall seeing before. Perhaps he composed some of the less obvious cues, but the ones you notice are themes and jingles you’ve heard many places before. Commercials, tv shows, the circus; they’re all so familiar, it once again seems obvious that they will be used for some sort of comedic purposes, and once again never are. I’m surprised the Benny Hill theme, Yakety Sax, wasn’t used here somewhere, but that might’ve been too easy to make funny.
I went into Outlaw Johnny Black expecting to be rewarded for surviving the past few years of oppression and horrible news, pandemics and overall negativity. I came out feeling like I’d just re-lived it all. At 2 hours and 10 minutes it felt like the movie took several days to sit through. Oppenheimer felt like a fairly short tik tok video comparatively. I didn’t expect it to be great. Knowing that, it’s even more disappointing how improbably bad it was. I just wanted to laugh. Sometimes even that is too much to ask. You just wouldn’t think so in a spoof.
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