The Wide West is now available on Xumo Play.
Actor and producer Alexander Nevsky has trended for a while now with a string of independent Westerns that have brought him good fortune in the markets with collaborator and filmmaker Joe Cornet. Their latest move, The Wide West, is a continuation of those efforts apart from their Rio Bravo trilogy, in which he rejoins Cornet from a script by Nevsky, and screenwriters Craig Hamann and Andrew Freund.
Also starring are Cornet, as well as Nick Baillie and Tatiana Neva. In addition, the cast is led by sumo proponents Hiroki Sumi and Ichi, best known for their Hollywood debut in Chad Stahelski’s John Wick: Chapter 4, as well as Kaz Kobayashi in a supporting capacity. As such, the film is billed as a nod to classic Westerns like Red Sun as the story pertains to an East-meets-West element for its cast.
What follows is a tale of newly formed friendships ahead of an explosive shootout that pits the people of a small town against a band of killers. We meet Max (Nevsky) whose arrival in the prospective town of Goldwater sooner sees him acquainting with the town’s No-Firearms ordinance, as well as its local lawman, Judge Ogburn (Baillie). Max soon sets foot into a nearby saloon where he meets Taka (Kobayashi) and his traveling companions, Daiki (Sumi) and Ichiro (Ichi), who’ve arrived to San Francisco three days ago and are on their way to meet President Roosevelt as diplomats from Japan, pending track repair.
It’s not too long before an incident breaks at the saloon, however, that threatens to upend their trip when Ichiro is forced to defend himself against an unruly saloon patron. Little do they know that the result of their actions have prompted a response by Jarret Kingrey (Cornet), a notorious gang leader who now has the town of Goldwater in his sights, aiming to collect any and all the town’s money, as well as the lives of the President’s venerated guests.
The Wide West works as a potential concept. It’s an inviting and intriguing snapshot into U.S. history, as well as an ample establishment of plentiful characters with a handful of worthy screen talents to its credit. The film’s obligatory third-act gunfight coordinated by Nevsky and Freund lends a servicable finish to suit the viewer’s Western genre filmgoing needs.
However, much of that aforementioned potential falls short in a lot of areas when considering the size and scale of this kind of production in accordance with the writing, and feels more underdeveloped as a result. Nevsky’s Max is a roaming gambler and cardshark who only cares about money. When Ogburn approaches him to make his plea to protect the town, his response brings to question just why it is he carries a gun in the first place.
There’s also certain select moments where acting and character placement left me bewildered by what was even happening and why, in addition to a lot of set pieces and sequences that are stretched out. Cornet employs a lot of music and slow motion editing during many of these scenes which, after a while, begin to feel like filler to help carry the film’s determined runtime. The film’s remainder later reveals a big twist that feels like a last minute dig to give the story an extra kick of intrigue.
As it stands, The Wide West is the kind of Western that sounds good on paper. Ideally, it lends visibility to an interesting character line-up and a cast you don’t typically see in a lot of American films. Sumi and Ichi are fun to watch in Cornet’s ubiquitious and humble ode to the late Terence Young, as well as Kobayashi’s Taka who eventually gets in on the action. To add, Nevsky’s dedication to Western genre fanfare and historical spotlighting are firmly commendable. Invariably though, a lot more needed to be done to make a concept like The Wide West do more than just take up space with less.
