Review by Benjamin Poole
Directed by: Jethro Waters
Starring: Jessica Hecht, Braz Cubas, Joel Loftin, Christopher Levoy Bower, Pate Leatherman, Valient Himself, Haley Nocik
Pursuing a quote from Mark Twain, renowned wiseass deconstructionist of rugged myths of U.S. masculinities, Jethro Waters' psychological Western Gunfighter Paradise opens with voiceover prairie poetry; a pantoum which likens the scent of gunpowder to the naked flames of campfires; blazes which illuminate intoned scenes of teenage sex and shooting "every type of firearm there is." Visually, a wide angle fades in on a sole figure traipsing an unmistakably North Carolinian landscape. As the camera gets tighter, a male face carefully lathered in green and brown camo stripes is revealed and the spoken litany shifts to guilt, the soul, praying and repentance. Consolidating the theme, a credits sequence depicts the DIY manufacture of bullets taking place beneath the plastic sheen of a dayglo crucifix poster. The crisp filmmaking craft of transitions - measuring, filling and ranking - mirror the careful and monomaniacal precision of Gunfighter Paradise protagonist Stoner, played by Brad Cubas, as he habitually prepares for a threat which is probably imagined, perhaps ingrained by his context. This strident blend of violence, sexuality and doctrine - literally represented in hallucinatory subjective bursts of flames, objectified bodies and Christ - is explored throughout Gunfighter's keen and clever whimsy, presenting a dark but convincing take on toxic Americana.
With a background in documentary and music videos Waters is a seasoned filmmaker, but also perhaps an augur. Made and initially released to festivals in 2024, Gunfighter Paradise captures a contemporary American psychosis of martyrdom, of fetishised death and violence, and exploited religious dogma. Ostensibly a hang out movie, we stick with Stoner's camouflaged hunter (named for John Williams' novel and its titular character, another examination of everyday American masculinity?) as he returns to his childhood home (turns out you can go home again..) following the death of his mother. With him, the hunter carries a mysterious green case... As Stoner rubs along with a picaresque of other characters, we see his mind gently disintegrating into fantasies of perceived instructions, intrusive visions and envisioned quests: a subjective surrealism absurdly matched by the quotidian oddness of the world around him.
A film of singular vision and impact, the movie Gunfighter Paradise most recalls is Taxi Driver, not just because of the iconography of fatigues and mythologization of guns, but in the particularly male impulse to have an enemy; to create purpose from an abstract threat. Where Waters' film crucially diverges from Scorsese's dark comedy, however, is the gentle humour of Gunfighter Paradise, and, indeed, this film's inherent kindness. In an early scene we see a couple of Confederacy dunces cowering in Stoner's house - illusions, ghosts? No, Stoner reassures old pal and visiting cable technician Joel (Joel Loftin), they're just LARPers who are waiting on a lift, and their guns only fire blanks - a neat metaphor for empty historical longing. The film predicates on Joel and Stoner hanging out, the former's sweet practicality meshing against his friend's oddness, the hunter's obsession with tradition - be it Egyptian or Native American - as if custom and established ritual are meaningful in and of themselves. "If you've never had white bread and Piccante cheese with a root beer in the fall, well, shame on you," Stoner chastises, as if eating such rudimentary foodstuffs is a national duty. With that, in opposition to the mise-en-scene's insidious promise of violence, the characters are sweet natured: in my favourite sequence, Joel makes the clearly irrational Stoner breakfast as a comfort, while in another a Civil War re-enactor admits to being a D&D enthusiast.
Waters intersperses such human interactions with pristinely vivid visuals: a pinecone being rubbed over a body, a mummified cat called Eugene with jewels for eyes; not to mention the iconic presence of Stoner himself. The hyperreality of it all remains compelling though, perhaps because Waters seems smitten with his main character yet repelled by his masculine crisis. It really is quite something, this film. Moreover, as previously stated, Gunfighter Paradise frighteningly prefigures the present-day state of the nation. As they drive around the neighbourhood, Joel and Stoner witness men dressed in the dark tactical clothing - protective vest, duty belt, boots - of similar ilk to that worn by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers we have recently seen killing people in the streets of Minnesota. In the film these men guard their homes from a perceived yet entirely absent opponent, desperate to enact violence and to feel like some sort of man, as if conditioned by this combatant utopia of North America. "That dude is wearing a sword," Joel observes. "Man, people are so bored in this country," Stoner blithely responds.
Gunfighter Paradise is in US cinemas from February 27th. A UK/ROI release has yet to be announced.
