Tex, the Passive-Aggressive Gunslinger

Tex, the Passive-Aggressive Gunslinger (2000)

Unrated Comedy, Short, Western • 0h 10m
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I love everything about this compact joy of a film, a sly anachronistic wink of a work that both honors a timeless genre while lacing it with the psychoanalytical hemlock of our screwy, modern world. Only Bob Balaban among our current crop of A-list character actors could pull this off to perfection, and he does! Makes you wonder, truth to tell, what an analyst might do with Billy the Kid or Jesse James on the couch. The supporting cast couldn't have been chosen more carefully or put to better use, all the way from the bad guy gunslinger whose clothes (even his hat!) seem miraculously pressed, to the old-timer Fuzzy Knight lookalike and the hoot of a saloon girl that Miss Kitty would love to hate. The black and white cinematography is just right, and, combined with a movie set right out of one of those old Warner Brothers TV Westerns of the 1950s _ heck, it might even BE one of those old sets _ sucks you right in, just as "Maverick," "The Rifleman," "Restless Gun," "Johnny Ringo" and the like did way back-when. Even the opening, with the deserted street and the tumbling tumbleweeds, nails the feel of those old shows. "Tex" pokes fun both at us as gullible Old West fans and the genre that we innocently and somewhat misguidedly created in the mid-20th century. We meant well _ but, oh my! A work of love, this. Bravo!

Brian Sawyer
Director
Brian Sawyer
Writer
Bob Balaban, Charles Rocket, Camilla Campanale
Starring

Language: English
Awards: 1 nomination
Country: United States
Metacritic Score:
DVD Release Date:
Box Office Total:

7.6

IMDb (87 votes)
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