A Tale of Two Guns (2022)

If I had to guess I would say that director Justin Lee is aiming for a meta-western, and A Tale of Two Guns (a title that must have sounded great on paper but which makes little contextual sense) certainly is very self-aware – even a little too much for its own good; here is a movie where the score in a scene set in a saloon (though according to the sign outside it is a “club” rather than a saloon) is Scott Joplin’s “The Entertainer.”

There is also a lot of talk about “the end of an era” and “a dying breed” and “figur[ing] out what men like us are gonna do in this life” now that “The organization known as the Cowboys has come to an end.”

As a matter of fact, there is a lot of talking in this movie, period, and quite a bit of it is rather incomprehensible. For instance, we have such non sequiturs as “I do not like your face, sir. Therefore, I will feel no such way about killing you on the merit that you are an annoyance in my presence.”

Now, don’t get me wrong; I love westerns almost as much as I love films about people talking, and there is no law that says a western can’t or shouldn’t be wordy (I’m reminded of Ed Harris’s Appaloosa, which had a lot of fun with the English language), but perhaps there is a reason that some of the greatest westerns seem to be as laconic as their heroes.

Two Guns is at its best when it’s about, in its own words, “the thrill of the hunt”; a cat and mouse game in which the pursuer (Ed Morrone) says of his prey (Casper Van Dien) that “I've just been hunting this man for a few weeks now, and every time I think I might understand him, he does something to surprise me.”

Both Morrone and Van Dien turn in solid performances, and there’s also strong supporting work from the likes of Tom Berenger, Jeff Fahey, Judd Nelson, and Danny Trejo.

Morrone is new to me, and the others are far from what you’d call an A-list cast; on the other hand, this isn’t the first rodeo for any of them, and they all bring a world-weary journeyman quality to the proceedings that is much welcome and much appreciated.

**_Hardened men fighting and willing to die in the desolate Southwest_**

I saw the writer/director’s “Any Bullet Will Do” from four years earlier and was really impressed, so I wanted to try one of his later films to see if he was a consistent filmmaker. It turns out he is. While I like the other one better due to the wintry Montana milieu and spunky Jenny Curtis, this one is worthy in its unique way.

For one thing, it’s more serious; not that “Any Bullet Will Do” was a comedy, but it did feature winks of dark amusement. Secondly, the setting is totally different, consisting of the bleak Southwest desert and the people trying to live there. The eponymous guns involve a lawman with a long gun (Ed Morrone) and a former outlaw with a six-shooter (Casper Van Dien). Tom Berenger is also on hand as an aged marshal.

Justin Lee’s strengths are that he allows his characters to breathe and, like Tarantino, engage in lengthy dialogues that seem natural, which will strike some viewers as boring. A long sequence involving a poker game is featured in the last act and it takes pros to make such a scene interesting and suspenseful, which they do. The film ends by driving home a weighty theme and leaving you with a good feeling. Stick around for an extra scene during the credits.

Remember those two worthwhile indie Westerns that Jack Nicholson and Monte Hellman did in the mid-60s, “The Shooting” and “Ride In the Whirlwind”? This is cut from the same cloth, just 55 years later and the improved technology thereof, not to mention a totally different story.

It runs 1h 31m and was shot in 2021 at Whitehorse Ranch, which is a 45-minute drive east of Big Bear Lake in the desert high country, as well as Prospector Ranch, which is a half hour drive northwest of Malibu in the high country.

GRADE: B/B+