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Promise Review
Loading...Promise Review
Trista Robinson– Promise Sawyer
Joe Cornet– Ransom
Curt Lambert– Wild Eye
James Henderson– Bill Gristy
Kerry Goodwin– Tess
Maude Bonanni– Francesca
Gene Rathswohl– Brick Logan
Chris Beeman– Zebediah Scurlock
Don Murray– Zacharias
(check out the rest of the cast here)
Directed by Joe Cornet
Screenplay by Joe Cornet
Distributed by Random Media
Not Rated
Runtime– 117 minutes
Available on iTunes, Google Play, and other Digital platforms starting April 6th, 2021
Promise, written by, directed by, and starring Joe Cornet and available starting April 6th on various Digital platforms including iTunes, Google Play, and others, is a low budget western that is too laid back for its own good. There are some fascinating performances and some nice set design and costuming, but the movie has no sense of time, urgency, and feels too much like a vanity project for star Cornet. I get that Cornet is trying to do the quiet, philosophical badass in the Old West thing, but it just doesn’t work as Cornet doesn’t have the necessary screen presence or charisma to pull it off. And why is this this movie almost two hours long when it has, maybe, 80 minutes of story in it?
Cornet stars as Ransom, an ex-Union Army scout who, after the end of the Civil War, became a professional shooter/bounty hunter. As he travelled the west, catching bounties and whatnot, he started up a deep relationship with Tess (Kerry Goodwin), a widow and mother of a young daughter Promise. Tess and Promise are attacked one day by a band of ex-Confederate scumbags who, years ago, buried a chest of Confederate gold somewhere around Tess’s home that they planned on using at some point in the future to start a second Civil War. Or something like that. The ex-Confederates kill Tess but don’t kill Promise because the lead ex-Confederate scumbag decides not to. The bad guys find the chest and take it away.
So then some stuff happens, many years pass, Ransom kills one of the ex-Confederate scumbags after playing cards with him in a saloon somewhere (the scumbag had a bounty out on him), and an older Promise (Trista Robinson) shows up to get Ransom to help her find the stash of Confederate gold. Ransom agrees to help her as he feels somewhat responsible for Tess’s death, and so they set out to find the chest. Now, while all of that is going on, Wild Eye (Curt Lambert), the brother of the ex-Confederate scumbag Ransom shot dead, shows up and wants to find the chest, too. Wild Eye teams up with an illiterate gunman named, I think, Brick Logan (Gene Rathswohl), and they go off looking for the chest. And while all of that is going on, local bounty hunter/killer/”professional” Bill Gristy (James Henderson) gets wind of the buried treasure and decides that he wants to find it, too.
And so the various groups go looking for the chest. I’m not entirely sure how long it takes anyone to eventually find the chest or, really, how long anyone is out and about in the desert and old west, moving from town to town and whatever, because the movie never makes it clear when the hell anything is happening. Ransom and Promise get to know one another, there’s some mild intrigue as everyone looking for the chest gets into everyone else’s business (there’s a whole thing about a sort of diary with a missing page that Promise has and Wild Eye needs or some bullshit), there are some violent moments (lots of people get shot in the leg in this movie), and it all sort of comes to a head as the chest is eventually recovered and the various interested parties try to come up with new schemes to get the chest for themselves. You’d think the action and suspense would ramp up as the story concludes, but it doesn’t. The movie just moseys on at a deliberate pace that just sucks the life out of the story.
So what went wrong with this movie? Why does it not succeed?
First off, again, is Joe Cornet as the star. Cornet never once exudes a sense of danger or malice as Ransom, a badass killer that some people are supposed to be afraid of because he has a military pistol on his hip. Cornet is unable to pull it off. Cornet is also unable to pull off the “philosophical cowboy” thing, either. He’s just a non-entity throughout the movie, and you can’t have that as the main character in a western. You just can’t. And is it me, or is Cornet playing Ransom like Alice Cooper high on valium? His performance is mind boggling, even when you realize he’s also the writer and director of the movie and he’s obviously going for what’s on screen.
Second, the story is way too convoluted. I’m not even entirely sure I have the full plot of the movie down pat. There are multiple side characters that show up, dispense information, and then go away only to come back briefly so they can be shot dead. The story needed to be streamlined at the script stage.
Third, the dialogue is just monotonous. Some of it works, some of it sounds nice, but there are times where even the actors giving good performances (Curt Lambert is a hoot as Wild Eye) are kneecapped by the endless talking they have to do. I guess the dialogue is meant to evoke the old days and the way people used to speak, but none of it ever feels natural or real or appropriate. Fewer words overall would have helped tremendously.
Fourth: there’s no real sense of time. I think the movie is meant to take place over a few weeks, but you never get a sense of the characters being out in the desert, looking for the chest, dodging danger, or, in the case of Ransom and Promise, that they’re trying to get to know one another. There’s a potentially interesting relationship between Ransom and Promise, a sort of father-daughter thing, but the movie never figures out how to make it work. It could have worked if we had a sense of “they’re out looking for the chest, there’s downtime during the quest, they talk while riding horses or camping somewhere,” but, again, that just doesn’t happen.
Fifth, the movie isn’t actually about the Promise character, despite being titled Promise and having Trista Robinson as the first name in the end titles. It should have been her movie. The movie should have delved more into her backstory and what she dealt with after her mother was murdered. But then, had that happened, we wouldn’t have seen Ransom being boring as fuck. That was apparently more important.
And finally, there isn’t enough action. A western should have at least one good gunfight in it, at least once sequence where there’s some back and forth between the good guys and the bad guys or whatever. Promise doesn’t contain anything like that in it. Characters do draw guns on one another and characters do shoot other characters, but there’s no sense of danger or excitement in any of it. I will say, though, there are a few nasty headshots in the movie.
So what works in Promise? Curt Lambert is, again, a hoot as Wild Eye, a bad guy with an eyepatch and a filthy mouth. You’re never quite sure if his voice is meant to be funny or goofy or to be taken seriously, but Wild Eye is always interesting. You will likely ask yourself, when the movie is over, why the hell movie wasn’t about Wild Eye from the beginning. That’s what I did.
James Henderson also does a nice job as Bill Gristy. He plays Gristy as a complete scumbag and that characterization works more than it doesn’t work (there are a few moments where Gristy should have been more over the top). And I will say that Henderson is the only one that makes the endless words he has to say sound natural. Gristy is exactly the kind of asshole that would say thirty unnecessary words before shooting someone in the face.
And Trista Robinson does a decent enough job as Promise. I just wish the movie did more with her. She explains her life story right up until the moment she meets Ransom, and I wouldn’t mind seeing that movie. Maybe that could be a prequel in the event that Promise is a hit?
I want to like Promise. I think the world needs more low budget westerns. But the world doesn’t need more low budget westerns like Promise. It’s just a mess on every level and rarely works as a movie. It’s a vanity project for star Joe Cornet who just isn’t as cool or interesting as he wants the audience to believe. Promise doesn’t work. It’s a disaster.
Only see Promise if you feel the need to. Otherwise, avoid.
So what do we have here?
Dead bodies: Around 10.
Explosions: None.
Nudity?: Briefly.
Doobage: An opening blurb, a box of gold that people want to hide, a naked woman, crucifix fondling, multiple crosses, hole digging, a total lack of time and place, double barrel shotgun hooey, knee blasting, off screen woman beating, food eating, bullet through the knee, a wicked head shot, a very uncomfortable tandem bath, bathtub sex, horse riding, a flashback, some old guy, coffee drinking, multiple weird transition edits, some bullshit about loving history, some walking and talking, a guy with a spyglass, a lack of literacy, a back and forth that should be more electric than it is, more leg shooting, attempted song creation, property fondling, candle lighting, a rotting dead body in a coffin, priest killing, multiple attacks, attempted rape, cop killing, throat slitting, bullet to the head, money box stealing, an unexpected beating, an off screen double cross, misogyny, shooting off a lock, a very brief standoff, and a lame as hell ending.
Kim Richards? Almost.
Gratuitous: A reflection of a naked woman, a guy drinking tequila at nine in the morning, card playing, a one eyed guy named “Wild Eye,” foot washing, an uncomfortable looking tandem bath, a guy trying to remember names from the Bible, “Johnny Reb,” use of the word “lickspittle,” a Don Quixote reference, multiple instances of leg shooting, a blind priest, misogyny, and a lame as hell ending.
Best lines: “This place gives me the heebie jeebies,” “My regiment leaves in the morning,” This isn’t a pleasure palace,” “Let’s just leave the little darling to her memories,” “Christ, I needed that,” “You shouldn’t have done that,” “Nothing is ever even in this world,” “You are the finest man I’ve ever known!,” “Do you fancy some coffee?,” “What are you saying? That you can’t control life. Life controls you,” “Should a man be allowed to grieve? For as long as he wishes,” “You loathsome sodomites!,” “My God! It really is you!,” “You know, I’ve been thinking. Well, no shit,” “I like rape,” “Believe me! A pot of gold awaits!,” “I knew it! They knew right where to go!,” “Goddamn, I can’t stand amateurs,” “Well, my son, is this what you seek?,” “Tiny woman, what do you know?,” “It ain’t healthy to give me sass,” “You do realize that, now, I’m gonna have to kill ya both,” “That’s for the inconvenience you two bit peckerwood,” “I hate verbose people,” “Can we ever, actually, have peace?,” “You just signed your death warrant,” “You are a wildcard,” “I’ve had enough of the chaos this damn box created,” and “I swear to Christ, if I ever find you I’ll cut you from ear to ear you sonofabitch!”
