Going Native

Double Feature

Though he’s known to his readers as a great and skillful craftsman of fiction, Frank Kidd is also a cinephile with a unique appreciation for American films. Here he presents us a double feature review for your reading (and viewing) pleasure.

I know what I’m watching this weekend.

- Frank Theodat

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That same thing that compels me to journey down weird conspiracy rabbit holes, also compels me in search of good films I may have missed. What often appeals to me in a movie, is the attempt, rather than the execution—I am a premise enjoyer. But man, if you can get both premise and execution. That’s what I call a 5/5. This week I want to remind you of two of these gems—both worth a revisit or even better, a first watch.

Thunderheart (1992)

Image Retrieved From: IMDB, Thunderheart (1992)

Val Kilmer plays a strait-laced fed boi, Ray Levoi, and is paired up with veteran G-man, Frank Coutelle, played by the hard nosed Sam Shepard, to investigate the murder of a tribal council member on a South Dakota Indian Reservation. The catch - Ray has Sioux ancestry, which the FBI believes will help ease tensions. But the events surrounding the murder involve a growing political dispute between the reservation’s Tribal Council, in favor of modernization, and ARM (Aboriginal Rights Movement) in favor of retvrn. Ray, out of touch with his roots, is quick to look down on the reservation and its inhabitants, but ever so slowly, blood-memory returns. As Ray investigates, he is drawn deeper into a ‘peacekeeping’ conspiracy that may involve the FBI itself.

From start to finish, the movie executes everything to near perfection. Val Kilmer’s character is given a dramatic and satisfying character arc. The blood-memory/reincarnation angle is used tastefully, and in a thematically resonant way without ever breaking you out of the story, and in fact enhancing it. And the United States Government, while the bad guy, is not depicted as inherently evil or cartoonishly racist but rather as the cold, calculating bureaucracy that it is. The following quote came to mind while watching.

“A state, is called the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly lieth it also; and this lie creepeth from its mouth: "I, the state, am the people." It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life. Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them. Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.”

―Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

If you are struggling to decide what to watch this weekend, I hope this made it a much easier choice. Excellent acting, flawless directing, and great writing. This movie is a 5/5 for me.

Last of the Dogmen (1995)

Fresh off my high from Thunderheart, I wanted another Native American themed neo-western. While I had seen Thunderheart a very long time ago, I had never seen Last of the Dogmen.

Image Retrieved from: IMDB, Last of the Dogmen (1995)

The premise is one of the most genuinely brilliant ideas I’ve seen a movie or story try to pull off, at least as far as my tastes in things go. And by brilliant, I mean pulpy and farfetched, but fun. Had the movie been made within the last five years the Missing 411 conspiracy angle would’ve been easy to shoehorn in. It’s one of those premises that makes you jealous you didn’t think of it. The execution leaves a little to desire. More on that in a bit.

Tom Berenger, who plays Lewis Gates, excels in his role as a former tracker for the US Marshal’s service. Opposite of him is anthropologist and professor, Lillian Sloane, played by Barbara Hershey. Gates is brought in for one last job, to track three escaped convicts on the run in the Oxbow wilderness. However, when he finds them, they are already dead, killed with primitive arrows that match those of the long-gone Cheyanne Dogmen. And so enters Lillian Sloane…

I’m going to leave it at that mostly because of spoilers. This movie is 100% worth watching mainly for the premise and Berenger’s charisma, and is undoubtedly fun, even though it falls apart in the third act. The emotional core of the movie doesn’t jive thematically, which makes me think at some point it became “Screenplay by Committee.” Save the Cat, and all that. I would love to see what the first script looked like, because I imagine it had a better handle on things.

As for problems, yes, it’s clumsily used as a vehicle to drop “genocide facts” through somewhat forced exposition, and the antagonist’s motivation barely makes sense. The movie also leans pretty heavily into the “Noble Savage” trope, while neglecting to fully explore some of its more exciting ideas, such as the disappearances in the Oxbow. While I was relieved by the ending, I don’t think it was the ending that the story demanded; tragedy and apocalypse inherently follows first contact. All this to say, its a good movie, a really good movie, and it makes it easy to overlook what didn’t work because of its originality and flashes of brilliance. As an adventure movie, it’s fantastic.

It’s reminiscent of a time when they were made for everyone; as in a movie that both your redneck uncle, and your feminist wine aunt with a weird Native American decoration habit could enjoy. It’s also funny to watch Berenger pack his lips full of Copenhagen in front of a slightly disgusted Barbara Hershey. Overall it’s a recommend, but not a 5/5, maybe closer to 3.5/5.