The world has to be jacked-up if the biggest celebrities are bounty hunters and not movie stars. But that's the jacked-up world of Bounty Killer, a post-apocalyptic action flick that may have the stuff to grow a cult audience. It's pulpy and action packed, but you can also argue that the director, Henry Saine, is misogynistic and self-indulgent.
You have a classic case of an anti-hero with a complicated past that he has to make right, a smokin' hot chick who can kick butt"”and may be the only one who can take him down"”plus you have a goofy sidekick. Hollywood calls it "the Zach Galifianakis type". Those three characters make up three quarters of the type of people in that world, and those four are: white collar criminals, bounty hunters, gypsies that look like they just left a KISS concert, and everybody else looks like they're down with the Dharma Initiative. Everyone is trying to kill everyone else because, well, it's post-apocalyptic, and that's what people do!
I wrestled with whether I liked this movie. This isn't something I would watch for fun, but there are a lot of elements I liked. Despite its budget limitations, the story has some ambitious concepts, the action is solid, I found the Zach Galifianakis-type amusing, and the smokin' hot chick that can kick butt can actually act!
This movie wants to have an epic feel, but it has some epic problems that keep it from being that. And it's not the cheesy dialogue and bad acting (though there's some of that). THIS MOVIE NEEDS A STAR! I know it's a B-movie, and Matthew Marsden isn't bad, but hey, you have Gary Busey, Eve, and Beverly D'Angelo. You're telling me The Rock wasn't available?
The other issue is length. It's less than 90 minutes, but it feels longer. The concept of some of the story is interesting, but its execution has dull stretches. There's not enough of an interesting core story that fills those 90 minutes. It should have been 60.
But if Henry Saine pulls in a surprise bounty at the box office and more later, studio execs won't care if his movies become 160 minutes long. Hollywood calls that "A New Tarantino".
