Mark Reviews Movies: DEAD FOR A DOLLAR

Dead for a Dollar, Quiver Distribution

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 29, 2022

The core idea of the plot of Dead for a Dollar is unmistakable. Here's a collection of heroes—good men doing some dirty work and a good woman who, having had enough, wants some payback—and villains—one who wants to but cannot escape his criminal past and a bunch of others who engage in villainy for business or personal ends. As the story of director Walter Hill's screenplay unfolds, the interests of all of these characters eventually intersect and/or collide, and out of those connections forms a web of conflict that entangles everyone at one point or another.

It's pretty straightforward and somewhat admirable in how all of the plot's complications arise from simple human desires or the requirements of a character's mission. Following through on that concept, though, seems like a struggle for Hill, who constantly raises various sources of conflict, only to delay or dismiss them. During the final standoff/shootout that serves as the hasty and generic climax to this Western, it soon becomes clear that only conflict here actually matters, and when the payoff to that one comes, it's as much an anticlimax as every other complication that has come before it. Hill's movie is at least consistent in offering up disappointment.

The plot mainly follows Max Borlund (Christoph Waltz), a famous or infamous bounty hunter detaining and killing wanted criminals in the West during the late 1890s. One of his bounties was Joe Cribbens (Willem Dafoe), an admitted horse thief who denies Borlund's accusations of other, more nefarious crimes, including murder. Joe has only killed those who have tried to kill him, unlike the bounty hunter, as the rumor goes and as Joe suspects. After all, Joe only drew his pistol on men who drew on him first. When Borlund arrested him, though, an unarmed Joe woke up to the sight of the lawman's revolver in his face.

An immediate notion is established—that of the corrupt officer of the law and the honest thief—and sounds fairly intriguing. Forget that, though, because Hill certainly does. As it turns out, Borlund is an honorable man (One supposes the flashback of him shooting a naked and, given his state of undress, obviously unarmed man in the back is either a tall tale or suddenly irrelevant), and he has a new mission.

A wealthy man (played by Hamish Linklater) hires Borlund to find his wife Rachel (Rachel Brosnahan), who apparently has been abducted by Elijah (Brandon Scott), a member of a Black cavalry regiment. There's a ransom, which the husband refuses to pay, but he'll pay Borlund to travel to Mexico and, with the help Elijah's former comrade Sgt. Poe (Warren Burke), retrieve Rachel, while arresting or killing Elijah.

Obviously, the situation is a bit more complicated than the story Borlund has been told, and upon arriving in Mexico, the bounty hunter has to deal with a wife who doesn't want to be rescued, a deserter and alleged kidnapper who has good reason to scheme to take money from the husband, and a local gang of entrepreneurial criminals, led by Tiberio Vargas (an intimidating but woefully underutilized Benjamin Bratt). By the way, Borlund's former bounty and current foe Joe is in Mexico, too. He just wants to live a quiet life of drinking and playing poker, but his humble ambitions and quick trigger finger eventually run afoul of Vargas' many, many business dealings.

Some of this actually matters to the plot. Some of it comes up and is dismissed, and a lot of it ultimately feels like a distraction from the conflict Hill wants to explore from the very beginning. Much of it, of course, should matter much less compared to the mood, the ideas, and the general look that Hill employs by way of this superficially convoluted but fundamentally direct tale of corruption, revenge, and characters of varying morality.

On the technical side, though, the movie really falls flat. Hill and editor Phil Norden never develop a consistent sense of rhythm to the plotting, with its various turns and betrayals undermined by momentum-breaking transitions (Those fades to black just stop everything in its place). Then, there's the look of the movie, which is imbued by cinematographer Lloyd Ahern II with an enveloping aura possessing the hue of worn leather. It suggests the time period and dusty locations, obviously, but beyond appearing dull, that aesthetic only emphasizes how redundant and lifeless the focus on this generic and repetitive plot often feels.

Dead for a Dollar wastes a lot of fine and a couple great actors, too. They're pawns in Hill's game, and unfortunately for them and us, they play the material as if they know how disposable their talents are in this material.

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