DEAD FOR A DOLLAR
Theaters / PVOD

There is nothing flashy about Walter Hill's latest western, Dead for a Dollar, which is dedicated to Budd Boetticher for a reason. Much like that legendary filmmaker's classics made with star Randolph Scott — most notably Buchanan Rides Alone, Ride Lonesome, and Decision at Sundown — this is an angry drama about hard men making tough choices, all the while looking down the barrel of a gun they know someday will hit its target.

Those expecting something akin to past Hill classics like The Long Riders, Southern Comfort, or Extreme Prejudice will likely be somewhat disappointed. For all the gunfire and bloodshed, this story is more about verbal confrontations and moralistic dilemmas than wild displays of action or sequences of bloody violence. Hill spends time getting to know the inner workings of his characters, letting the audience get a feel for who they are through brief nuggets of dialogue that say precious little but frequently reveal a whole heck of a lot.

I've always loved it when Hill gets introspective. From his early days helming down-and-dirty barn burners like Hard Times and The Driver to his frequently overlooked 1990s run of Trespass, Geronimo: An American Legend, and the criminally underrated Wild Bill with Jeff Bridges and Ellen Barkin, his solid genre craftsmanship and insistence on digging into the thornier recesses of the human condition have always excited me. Hill refuses to paint in black and white: his heroes are often as ugly as his villains, and I think this is why almost all of his motion pictures — even misfires like Brewster's Millions, Supernova, and The Assignment — are fascinating to watch, precisely because of their ambitious flaws and not in spite of them.

Dead for a Dollar follows renowned bounty hunter Max Borlund (Christoph Waltz). With the blessing of the United States cavalry, he has been hired by wealthy Santa Fe businessman Mr. Kidd (Hamish Linklater) to rescue his kidnapped wife Rachel (Rachel Brosnahan) from buffalo soldier Elijah Jones (Brandon Scott). They are currently holed up in Mexico, waiting for a $10,000 ransom, which Jones is expecting his best friend and fellow soldier Sgt. Alonzo Poe (Warren Burke) to be bringing.

What Borlund was not told was that Rachel was not kidnapped. Instead, she was fleeing an abusive marriage. Jones helped her get away from her vindictive husband, and the two of them are planning on fleeing to Cuba once they get their hands on the ransom. But Borlund has a job to do, no matter how distasteful it may be, and with Poe's assistance, he is determined to see things through to the end, even if the outcome may not be the one the manipulative Mr. Kidd was hoping for.

Into this mix are also thrown recently paroled horse thief, cardsharp, and notorious quick-draw artist Joe Cribbens (Willem Dafoe) and Mexican land baron and all-around bad guy Tiberio (Benjamin Bratt). The former holds a grudge against Borlund for arresting him five years prior, while the latter sees a business opportunity when the bounty hunter brings his prisoners to a small town he has squarely under his thumb. Everyone expectedly comes together in a shoot-em-up climax, in which a small group must fend off a large force. Bullets fly willy-nilly and bodies end up riddled with holes and lying facedown in the middle of the street.

Hill takes his time getting to the action, only sporadically punctuating the narrative with brief flashes of violence, if only to remind the audience how dangerous this world truly is. Instead, he allows Rachel to reveal herself bit by bit and lets Borlund's code of ethics materialize as more of the truth comes to light. There's also an unanticipated complexity to Jones and Poe's relationship; their friendship remains strong, even if the betrayal that has brought them together during this sordid journey stings like the dickens.

Aesthetically this is the most restrained Hill has been in ages. Cinematographer Lloyd Ahern (Bullet to the Head) channels the old masters who worked for the likes of John Ford, Howard Hawks, and the aforementioned Boetticher. He eschews anything too ostentatious, allowing his camera to capture the widescreen vistas and sprawling dusty streets with slow pans left and right. It is not until Tiberio arrives in town with his band of cutthroats that the visual language subtly and dynamically changes, at which point Ahern, Hill, and editor Phil Norden (The Assignment) aggressively switch visual gears to match the cruelly lethal bloodshed unleashed during the climax.

It is quite possible this may be the final film Hill, now 80, directs. While I hope that isn't the case, if it is, Dead for a Dollar is a strong, suitable capper to a long and illustrious career. It's a throwback western made with precision, passion, and care. For fans of the genre, this is an essential quick-draw jolt of B-grade pulp fiction worth unholstering.