The Last Manhunt

Original, low-budget Native American true-tale period-drama "The Last Manhunt" features some stunning Christian Camargo direction, yet is hamstrung by Thomas Pa'a Sibbett's sluggish & oft confused screenplay. In 1909 when Chemehuevi tribe teen Martin Sensmeier accidentally shoots dead Zahn McClarnon (disapproving dad of his gf Mainei Kinimaka) he & she hide out in the Joshua Tree desert as a bickering posse of regular & Native American po-po (inc Carmago, Raoul Max Trujillo, Brandon Oakes & Jason Momoa (in minor support)) hunts them. More sedate & less tense than it coulda / shoulda been it is interesting, but it's ultimately also disappointing.

Sun Dust Stones... And a snake... it bites... and 2 Indians who don't know how to handle a snake bite... really'??? And one of the indian hunters aims to sharp shoot the hunted indian, but he was elswhere, looking for medecine. The hunter could not differentiate a man in shirt, pants and boots from a woman in long white dress. Oh come on, what is the IQ of the writers to think we can accept .. For the sake of dramatization, but very poorly staged. Take some lessons with Tarantino. Or were they really that primitive a century ago? Stupid people reacting stupid talking stupid. Once in a while an intelligent dialogue. The acting is so poor, so wrong, meaningless, so flat, without tone and originality. I liked the landscape. But then again, why was it shot in 4/3 aspect ratio? Landscape is supposed to be large, not in the form of a portrait. So much decisions in this movie are wrong, or bad, and if they wanted to tell the story of Willie Boy to give him credit, they did it in the most disrespectful way... If I was Willie Boy, I would haunt them the rest of their life! The only merit of a bad movie is that it makes me do some research, now I need to watch the old classic with Robert Redford. Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here. Hopefully it will erase the bad memory this film has brought to me about Willie Boy and Carlota.

I can understand some of the other reviews if this is the first time you've heard of Willie Boy. First of all the scenery alone was awesome and genuine. Having lived by Gilman Ranch and hearing of Willie Boy in 1991, reading Mr. Lawton's book, then watching the previous movie, it was so refreshing to see this story told from a native point of view. I appreciated the fact the characters were not based on fiction but on what limited facts have survived, even if that hindered character development. I would trust oral histories passed down through generations before news reporters concocting yet another fairy tale. It's about time!

I was a little confused at first because I didn't recognise the format or genre but gradually as the film played out I began to see it's meaning. We have grown accustomed to many stereotypes in Westerns and I'm always looking for films that try to portray a more realistic narrative. There are some fairly decent performances in this film and the simple story is reasonably well told but of course some of the actors based their performances on fiction instead of reality which distracts from the overall experience. However this does tend to work in concept and I can see why it was tolerated. It's not easy to develop character profiles without recognisable stereotypes but it would be possible with a good director and better script. Without a little artistic license this wouldn't be much of a story and certainly not worth making a film of, there is one sentence in text at the beginning and another sentence at the end and that is what the whole film is based around. Not a blockbuster, more of a curiosity but worth watching in it's own right.