(IMAGE: The Daily Wire)
The Daily Wire. 2022. Western. 107 minutes.
RATING: 3 out of 4
On the heels of its incendiary documentary What is a Woman, Ben Shapiro’s The Daily Wire returns to politically-neutral narrative territory with another solid, if formulaic, genre film, this time the Michael Polish-directed Terror on the Prairie, a throwback ‘70s style revisionist western which lives somewhere between Straw Dogs, McCabe & Mrs. Miller, High Plains Drifter and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid.
That’s not to say that Terror on the Prairie is anywhere near the same league as those earlier classics, but Polish isn’t shy about channeling the spirit of the directors who helped shape the genre from the late ‘60s through the late ‘70s — namely Sam Peckinpah, Don Siegel, Clint Eastwood and Robert Altman. Like nearly all revisionist westerns, the premise is a vehicle for both textual and subtextual conceits — superficially, it’s a traditional “woman in jeopardy” tale which facilitates an escalating series of suspenseful, violent set pieces; below the surface, it’s a grueling — and often gruesome — meditation on the lingering self-inflicted wounds left by the the American Civil War in far-flung locales like frontier Montana and beyond. Such films typically traffic in unsubtle setups, and the same holds true here — Hattie McCallister (Gina Carano) and her husband Jeb (UFC champ Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone) eek out a meager existence as homesteaders in 1870s Montana along with their baby daughter and pre-teen son, Will (Rhys Jackson Becker). As luck would have it, Jeb heads to town in search of work on the very day a quartet of outlaws (Nick Searcy, Tyler Fischer, Gabriel-Kane Day Lewis and Heath Freeman) comes calling, presumably for hospitality after many months “in the saddle.” Spotting their collection of trophy scalps, Hattie promptly withdraws her hospitality and a prolonged, violent standoff ensues.
Josiah Nelson’s screenplay largely hews to formula, but it’s a competent effort with well-drawn, if archetypal, characters and strong, credible dialogue which at least respectfully nods to the films from which it borrows. Performances are even enough — Carano is no great actress, but she’s more than up to the challenge here, which largely requires her to be stoic, quick on her feet and fast on the trigger. UFC fighter Cerrone, on the other hand, whose acting career has been coming on for a few years, is all but unrecognizable and surprisingly adept as her flawed but committed husband. As is typically the case in westerns, however, it’s the Big Bad who walks away with the picture — and veteran actor Nick Searcy (of television’s “Justified” and Oscar-winner The Shape of Water) does not disappoint. Searcy’s charming, righteous sadist takes shape as a man of profound moral and intellectual complexity, the peeling back of which, more than anything related to the McCallister family, gives the film its resonance and sustains its momentum. Also of note is the young Day Lewis — son of Daniel Day-Lewis and French actress Isabelle Adjani — who exhibits a strong screen presence with limited opportunities. Whether he can rise to the pedigree of his distinguished parents remains to be seen, but from what’s on display here, it would appear to be promising.
In the more than two decades since director Polish and his brother Mark — known collectively as The Polish Brothers — burst on the scene with 1999’s Twin Falls Idaho and 2003’s Northfork, the critical plaudits have been less and less frequent, especially in recent years. If Terror on the Prairie isn’t quite a comeback, it’s at least a step in the right direction and proof that Polish can still execute a commanding visual style when given the opportunity. Resisting the temptation to veer too far into either pastoral excess or rank exploitation, Polish keeps the focus squarely on character and performance, bringing the 107-minute picture in with scarcely a lull.
Unfortunately, as was the case with What is a Woman?, the picture also appears to be suffering something of a critical blackout based on its affiliation with conservative news site The Daily Wire, who is both financier and distributor. That blackout, in turn, is handicapping its exposure, particularly on Rotten Tomatoes. In time, however, critics will be forced to reconcile themselves to the untenability of that standoff, which makes even less sense than the one at the center of Terror on the Prairie. With the noteworthy exception of What is a Woman?, The Daily Wire’s inaugural slate has been markedly not conservative. Neither Terror on the Prairie nor the year’s earlier DJ Caruso-directed thriller Shut In are what anyone could rightly term “family friendly.” What they represent is a de-politicized alternative to Hollywood — namely character-driven, director-oriented, high production value films unburdened of mandates with which studio DEI departments are increasingly shaping their output. If anything, Terror on the Prairie resembles a class of 1970s films which earned the scorn of cultural conservatives at the time for dramatically escalating the quotient of blood and violence in mainstream Hollywood cinema. In the current environment, of course, the refusal to make a political statement is viewed in a certain quarter as tantamount to a political statement — but for the purposes of film criticism, that’s both a negligible aside and petty speculation. That this film features two noteworthy actors associated with Hollywood’s conservative contingent — Carano and Searcy — with the former making her first screen appearance since her much-publicized firing from Disney’s “The Mandalorian,” will obviously give rise to another type of petty speculation, though it should really be given no more consideration than the presence of left-leaning actors like Chris Evans and Mark Ruffalo in Marvel’s Avengers films. What Hollywood does not need is a balkanized environment in which conservative and liberal artists self-segregate into their own production and distribution hives, creating movies exclusively for their self-selected partisan tribes. Hollywood was previously at its best when it was a politically agnostic place, welcoming of all artists from all backgrounds, and it would be a step in the right direction if it could return to that place — and if film critics in particular didn’t stand in the way, but helped facilitate the turn.
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