Outlaw Johnny Black (2023)
From the Brothers Who Brought You Black Dynamite
You ever watch a movie and wonder why you haven’t really heard more about it? Perhaps you’ve found yourself looking at a movie and going “they can’t make a movie like that anymore.” I’ve been known to watch a movie simply because the box art, or in some instances even just because an actor I recognize or like is in it. I’ve also been know to look at a title and just watch whatever absolute filth they just threw at me on a shoe string budget as a passion project - so my ways aren’t always without their repercussions. Well, tonight’s movie is one of my adventures in finding movies with Micheal Jai White in them because my cousin loves his movies - and that’s good enough for me. Grab your chaps and a can of beans, tonight’s honey soaked biscuit takes out out to the wild west to see some adventures of Outlaw Johnny Black.
Our story follows around one character - named in the title - as he seeks revenge. We start later on, but we get some flashbacks of the main who shot his father and drove his quest for revenge, but we follow the grown man on his quest as mentioned, and that quest is as littered with hijinks and twists as my reviews usually have spelling errors that I need to correct constantly to make it look like I can type good. That’s a joke, and also a worse joke than the stuff that’s in the movie - anyways, should I get back to the plot? He meets a preacher, who gets his own sub plot action before tying back into the proper story, and where all these various little bits tie together is the classic having to save the western town from the bad guys. This is super simplifying things, and also leaving out a lot of the meat and tater’s of the movies background, but if I’m being honest the actual story part of this movie is probably the part I need least to enjoy it.
The actors here do great. Between the energy and the slight twist to what you would normally expect out of a western it manages to both fit remarkably well into the mold while constantly spilling out. The closest thing you could get to a phone in line is a random background character delivering their single line of the movie, and with the rest of the film and how it straddles the Blazing Saddles line you can’t even convince me that it’s not expertly delivered as intended. Our mains all have remarkable amounts of personality that come out frequently, and they do a good job of weaponizing it for humor but also the moral and progression sections of the movie.
The characters themselves are fun, albeit not all equally in-depth. That said, there are a ton of characters in this thing, and if each one got the full arc that the lead gets it’d be impossible to watch the entire thing in one sitting. As it is though, all the lead players feel like they have motivations, even if it’s cartoonish at times. Even the villains are oddly hard to necessarily hate - it’s not hard to recognize they are bad folks on any basis, but they have enough quirk to them that it’s not like some movies you hate when a character is on the screen - more like this time around you don’t like what that character is trying to do, but your still enjoying all the interactions they are having on the screen. Well, at least mostly.
Your first time?
You often hear people talk about Mel Brooks movies like they would be impossible to make in this day and age, and to some extent I don’t think it’s an entirely wrong sentiment. The riskier a movie is deemed by a production house the harder it’ll be to sell it to them on account of perceived returns. For the current age, this is largely a bunch of folks either being offended (often for people who aren’t offended) and the counter-clash of that often labeled as anti-woke. You’ll never please them all as they say - and even this movie is still subject to that - I could see people looking to pick a fight and carrying that weight deciding that it’s totally inappropriate how they played out the Native Americans on screen, or how the white guys were the bad guys, or whatever claims they’d make - and you know what, it’s okay for them to have those opinions but I’m here to tell you that me and the two other folks I watched it with still laughed our rears off at various moments in this movie regardless at whose expense it was at. We aren’t here to fight the movie, we are here to enjoy it, and some of the stuff here is (albeit may-haps not appropriate for younger audiences who might be just old enough to catch all those innuendos) straight up hysterical. Mind you, with humor mileage always varies depending on the person, but that slap-gun-slap nonsense towards the end is some pristine stuff.
Now, the thinking folks will be happy to know that because of all that this movie can be perceived to have a lot to say. The most obvious thing is the religious high-moral love and forgiveness that it at one point literally preaches (hence it being the most obvious). Beyond that though, you could get a lot of that racially charged commentary in there that someone more brainy than me could do a better job talking about - but they do play with it for comedic effect, and sometimes you might feel a little bad laughing at it because of how on the nose it is even if it is funny still. There’s probably plenty more out there with the greed and thievery and other fancy wild west stuff going on. And of course, that wacky finale all about unity and the likes - like, I can’t do a better job describing this thing that calling it a move similar to Blazing Saddles - it’s not exactly it, it has a bit more seriousness to it and a different angle with all the preacher and outlaw stuff, but it very much feels in a similar vein to me.
Set and suit wise it’s all good to look at. Costumes are solid, as is the dry desert and frontier-style towns. If you just looked at a good section of pictures, you wouldn’t expect this to be anything beyond a normal western movie, but then you start getting it moving and it turns into a whole different angle. The guidance rating probably indicates the fact that the violence here is far from graphic, even though folks do get shot in the wild west. The most explosive thing you’ll get is one decent explosion that might have been a stock element followed by a not quite as great tunnel collapse. The fanciest effect you’ll get though is a nice little thought bubble pop out as our main pieces together a situation in his head. From there, it’s mostly all acting and camera shots, appropriate looking sets and funny events. Oh, and for the ladies (or whoever else swings that way), you do get that nice shot of a topless White, being all jacked to high heaven and looking like you could break a plank on his pecks. And before anyone says something - no, we don’t care if suddenly there is martial arts in the wild west, it looks cool and leads to great lines like “I was going to say nincompoop.”
Real Blazing Saddles vibes.
Go into it for fun and you’ll have a right blast with this movie. If your a fans of westerns, it does some great back and forth between following stereotypes and beats and flipping them on their head to pick on them. It’s got a good heart, some fine acting, and costumes and sets all look good. It might not be the most action packed, and it might not be without some slower parts, but as long as you aren’t easily offended you’ll probably have an absolutely wonderful time with this one. Just, you know, maybe check it out before you have your kids watch it for those more sassy bits - not that anything more than pg-13 is shown, but hey - safety first am I right?