Sweetwater (2013)

rating: *

the story: A corrupt preacher in New Mexico territory faces judgment day at the hands of a widow and the new lawman.

what it's all about: Lest you think I generally only write about (or watch) movies I like or at least like things about, or have something interesting (in a positive way) about them...I give you Sweetwater.  I thought there would be things to like about it.  I like Ed Harris and Jason Isaacs a great deal.  Until Sweetwater I'd never seen either in something I didn't like.  Well, can't really say that anymore.  This movie is terrible.

These days we tend to talk about "terrible" movies in terms of creative decisions we don't agree with or in questioning their CGI.  But truly bad movies do exist, and I don't mean horribly, horribly incompetent filmmaking that shows up in Mystery Science Theater 3000, but stuff like, well, Sweetwater.  Stuff that's entirely convinced it's just a step or two away from, say, Tarantino or the Coen brothers, as the DVD packaging of Sweetwater suggests.  More like a few steps away from 3000, DVD packaging.  Said packaging also says this was a Sundance film festival selection.  I have no idea how that's even possible.  Maybe I don't know Sundance near well enough.  Maybe it has crap all the time?

But here's the thing.  Here's Sweetwater's Rotten Tomatoes page.  And technically, it features a pretty dismal rating, both from critics and audiences.  But...Take even a brief look at those critics and fans are saying, and I say, they don't seem to understand at all the scope of how terrible Sweetwater is.  They think it's somehow redeemable.  It really, really isn't. 

Let's start with Isaacs' preacher.  The idea is itself cartoonish, more a cult figure from some modern innercity than someone who should be the focus of a movie that's supposed to be taken seriously, some fever dream vision of Christians as they're viewed now than what their role was in the late 1800s, the actual setting of this movie.  And because this is a cartoon Christian, this preacher looks pretty much exactly like Jesus.  It's not that Jason Isaacs gives a bad performance.  He does what he can with the material.  I remember people saying his character in The Patriot was a parody; his Harry Potter work was admittedly designed to leave no doubt about Lucius Malfoy's status.  But they were both still excellent performances, as is his work in Sweetwater.  If there's truly a glimmer of a redemptive possibility, it's Isaacs.

Ed Harris fares worse.  He's the lawman who comes to town.  But he's asked to do bizarre things like dance weirdly for no discernable reason other than the movie thinks it's quirky enough to characterize itself.  But it's as stupid and prurient as the shopkeeper we see spying on women with his pants down.  Otherwise Harris is typically Harris, but I have no idea what possessed him to go along with the idiotic dancing.

The nominal lead is January Jones, best known for Mad Men and X-Men: First Class.  I've been of the suspicious that a lot of what's passed as popular TV entertainment in the past twenty years is actually of the same general quality as Sweetwater, and it's actors like Jones who keep suffering for it.  In Mad Men she was cast as one of the "ironic" babes the guys salivate over "in the era where this was acceptable," "because the show is teaching us a lesson."  But as with X-Men: First Class, as with Sweetwater, she's no doubt there merely to be a pretty face, not because anyone thought for a second whether or not the role suited her talents.  Because Sweetwater has no idea what her talents are, except to eventually have a nude scene for the sake of having a nude scene, and to be silent during her violent revenge.  When critics complain about silent heroines, they're really complaining about stuff like this.  If they complain when the actor fits the rest of the role, they're merely being misogynists, because male actors are silent in actions roles all the time and those same critics don't complain then...

And that about sums up what's wrong with Sweetwater...And what's wrong with people even sort of liking stuff like this?  It's clear admittance that they have no discernable critical ability.  And this is reflected in the popular culture far more often than anyone is prepared to admit.  In sum, this is the sort of thing to be embarrassed about.