The Kid
A dull biographical western - 4/10
by The Movie Inspector
A dull biographical western, The Kid loses sight of its aim almost immediately as it keeps shifting focus, and ultimately confuses viewers on what story it’s trying to tell. A poor structure and underwhelming plot fail to take advantage of the interesting premise.
So this movie is one that could’ve been really interesting, mainly due to the character of Billy the kid but instead it decides to waste every opportunity, throw in some poor dialogue and play out on a boring narrative. The fact that actor Vincent D’Onofrio directed this film made me realize that I’d much rather see him on the big screen than in the director’s chair. His style is too bland and couldn’t set the tone properly to give life to this movie. ‘The Kid’ follows a young kid and his sister as they encounter notorious outlaw, billy the kid who is attempting to escape the sheriff.
Alright so as the movie progresses it almost feels as though we are watching three spectate stories, neither of which appear interesting enough to carry a feature length movie. The first act was actually so confusing that I really didn’t know whose story the movie revolves around. It also definitely lacked a lot of depth and was often trying too hard to come off as a classical western. From various subplots to a very strange (supposed) antagonist, played by a bizarrely miscast Chris Pratt, I couldn’t help but lose interest in what I was watching.
Ethan Hawke delivers a good performance but his character still lacked lots of depth and motivation. Honestly the poorly written script didn’t help anyone and only brought this movie down. Pacing-wise, it’s quite slow yet not so disastrous to a point of frustration. Additionally, the movie doesn’t have much to offer and always remains at the surface of things. D’Onofrio seemed only interested in carelessly playing around with the frame, camera movements and lenses that it almost felt as though he was working on a project and not a film!
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