- Director: Gavin O'Connor
- Writers: Brian Duffield (screenplay), Anthony Tambakis (screenplay)
- Stars: Natalie Portman, Joel Edgerton, Ewan McGregor
Movie Review:
Days gone by year was a great one for females on the silver screen. We'd Mad Utmost: Fury Street, Spy, Objective Impossible: Rogue Country, Star Wars: Event VII - The Power Awakens - films that championed hard, smart, independent feminine characters.
And today, kicking off 2016 is Jane Got a Gun, a movie that works screaming in the contrary direction.
In case you’ve forgotten, Jane Got a Gun is the much beleaguered Western starring Natalie Portman that suffered nearly every setback imaginable. And that was before the cameras even started rolling. Nearly three years later, it’s finally crawling into theaters on Friday.
Conceived by Brian Duffield and directed by Gavin O’Connor, the film tells the story of a 19th-century Southwestern frontier woman, whose life is upended when a gang of outlaws from her past threatens her family. Jane’s husband Bill (Noah Emmerich) returns home riddled with bullets courtesy of the legendary Bishop Males, led by Colin Bishop (Ewan McGregor). To fight them off, she enlists the help of Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton), her former fiancé.
Even though Jane faces her adversaries to protect her husband and young daughter, the movie manages to make her, the protagonist, a supporting personality in her own tale. Worse, she’s a victim often over, one who’s constantly portrayed as a award for the male people to earn. All anyone really appears to value is who Jane “belongs to,” since it certainly isn’t herself. Whether it’s Costs, Dan, or Bishop, the men all state ownership of her and take part in looking contests while uttering the casual gruff, “She’s not your premises” or, “A guy going for a thing that don’t participate in him...” Even accounting for historical precision, it all seems greater than a tad retrograde. It's hard to assume that is the movie that Portman (who also produced) envisioned when she agreed upon on in 2012.
Anyway, back again to the story. In flashbacks, we see Jane and Dan’s courtship. Later, she involves think that her fiancé has died in the Civil Battle. So she heads west with Bishop’s caravan, only to discover that she has become a piece of inventory in a sex trade. But Bill, a member of Bishop’s team, takes a liking to Jane and notes that he’d like to “keep her for myself.” Bishop refuses, Jane is forced into prostitution, and Bill “nobly” rescues her, literally sweeping her off of her feet to start a new life as husband and wife. Did she forget that Bill was originally a part of the nasty gang that did her wrong? It might be a case of Stockholm syndrome, or it might just be that the film doesn’t respect Jane enough to allow her to say no.
Soon enough, the revenge-thirsty Bishop Males put just enough lead into Bill to keep him on death’s doorstep. Speaking of which, Dan, it turns out, is not dead at all but a living, breathing, recently freed prisoner of battle. He begrudgingly agrees to help Jane and Costs, though not without whining about how exactly another man has used his female, and announcing that being scorned by Jane is worse than being tortured and beaten while in a jail camp. Women, am I right, people? The men do a lot of stuff: order Jane around, insult her, and mansplain at every available occasion. Just what a bargain!
Finally, let's discuss the title. Although it holds true that, close to the end of the film, our gal will utilize a firearm, really, the “gun” that Jane “gets” is Dan, the best, strong man who protects her. If Jane Got a Gun have been interested in offering its main personality any power of her own, rather than acquiring a weapon, she may have received the heck out of Dodge and became a member of Furiosa and Rey for a celebration out in the desert.
