FORSAKEN: An Anti-Pacifist Western That’s As Bad As That Sounds

In the days of the revisionist Western, sometimes a throwback to the simple pleasures of the genre’s oldest delights are all that are needed. The only problem with revisiting old cliches is that no amount of nostalgia or charm can make them feel original again, and if performed without either, it comes across as laboured box-ticking in order to fulfil genre requirements.

Forsaken unfortunately is the latter, possessing an initial kitsch charm that wears thin quickly when it transpires the film has no unique tricks up its sleeve.

Only shows passion at its most violent

Although Donald and Kiefer Sutherland have appeared in films together before, they’ve never shared a scene. It is something of an anti-climax that the first time the two are co-starring together, the result is so quickly forgettable, destined to live on in cinematic history solely as an answer to a Trivial Pursuit question. Even stranger is that something so bland, is a long-gestating passion project for the younger star and director Jon Cassar, a long-time hired hand on Sutherland’s hit series 24. Reportedly they both wanted to make an old-school Western for quite some time. Now that they’ve finally managed to embrace the genre, the result feels oddly passionless; a labour of love where only the labour is detectable to audiences.

Following the death of his mother, newly pacifist-former gunslinger John Henry (Kiefer Sutherland) heads back to his hometown in the hopes of reconnecting with his father (Donald Sutherland) and to live a newly peaceful life consisting highly of chopping wood. His attempts at peace are unsurprisingly futile; his former flame (Demi Moore) he had hoped to reconnect with is long since married and a gang of outlaws are in control of the town. Only he can stop them, which leads to the worrying thesis line of the film: that a life of non-violence and gun control is utterly useless and to publicly air any of these moral values will cause you to become a societal outcast.

Of course, this trigger-happy, NRA-friendly moral isn’t a wholly new development for star and director; as 24 progressed during its later seasons it essentially became an extended “how to” guide for torture. But it is worryingly that the only area of Forsaken that shows a single iota of passion, is revelling in the gun-slinging carnage as opposed to developing characters we actually care about living or dying. It is a strange combination of the same violent socio-political streak of 24 with the innocence of the most basic classic western.

Imagine if the “Lazy Ole’ Moon” skit in Hail, Caesar had replaced singing cowboys with trigger-happy ones and you’d be close to the uneasy blend of old-school innocence with post-modern violent tendencies that Forsaken presents.

A cliche of a western

The film had a troubled production to say the least; shelved for two years after filming wrapped in 2013, as many of the workers involved in the $20 million production didn’t receive payment. Usually backstage details are irrelevant in assessing the overall quality of the film, but here it appears there was so much drama going on backstage the cast decided to take a break from it in front of the cameras. After viewing the film, that moderate budget appears gobsmacking. There is a fine cast here, as well as some pretty cinematography in the classic Western tradition, but the production itself looks inescapably cheap.

The few exterior locations shown all appear to be on one giant Westworld-style lot, an amateur replication of bygone thrills on a flimsy payroll that, like the titular theme park in Michael Crichton’s film, was created with commerce and not art in mind. Although to call it a parodic visual representation of a Western setting is insulting to parody; A Million Ways to Die in the West is one of the worst films this decade, but at least had beautiful cinematography and production design that firmly represented the genre it was sending up.

With Forsaken, it feels only natural to wonder whether or not the production was a giant money laundering scheme. After all, none of the performers (with the exception of a delightfully hammy Brian Cox) turn in solid, passionate performances, so much as appear for reasons dictated by contractual obligations, confused by their uncinematic surroundings..

Although it is uninteresting, politically regressive and imminently forgettable, I didn’t hate Forsaken. There is value to a modern film ignoring the current revisionist period of the genre and doubling down on simple pleasures. After all, it is hard not to enjoy a cowboy walk burst through the doors of a saloon to find all the locals immediately go deadly silent and turn towards him; some cliches are still mightily enjoyable in spite of their overuse.

But I was left remembering that the recent slow-burner Bone Tomahawk managed to be an old-school Western with a contemporary genre twist, that conformed genre expectations whilst still maintaining an old school, anti-revisionist sensibility. Forsaken merely wants to play it safe, establishing a narrative arc that no viewer will fail to second guess from its earliest moments. If you hit the stop button and wrote down how you believed the narrative would conclude, there is no way your answer wouldn’t resemble what would soon come on-screen.

Conclusion

As modern critics lament the death of the genre, Forsaken is a reminder as to why Westerns went out of fashion in the first place. Providing only uninspired thrills that fail to even be fleetingly thrilling, it is cinema that is soon to be forgotten.

What are the best and worst 21st century Westerns?

Forsaken is out on VOD in the US now. All international release dates are here, but don’t hold your breath.