Gunslingers (2025) - Film Review

      Gunslingers, 2025.

      Written and Directed by Brian Skiba.

      Featuring Stephen Dorff, Nicolas Cage, Costas Mandylor, Heather Graham, Scarlet Stallone, Bre Blair, William McNamara, Randall Batinkoff, Tzi Ma, Cooper Barnes, Mitchell Hoog, Elisabetta Fantone, Jeremy Kent Jackson, Mohamed Karim, Laurie Love, Dan O’Brien, Brooklen Wilkes, Ava Monroe Tadross, Forrest Wilder, Forrie J. Smith, Kartuah Chapman, Hunter Bines, Francis Cronin, Matthew Daniel Stevens, Eric Mabius, and Taylor Bines.

      SYNOPSIS:

      When America's most wanted man appears in a small town in Kentucky, his violent past and a vengeful mob desiring both revenge and a fortune quickly follow. As brothers confront each other and gunfire tears through the town, this swift gunslinger ensures that his adversaries pay dearly for their avarice.

      Writer/director Brian Skiba consistently produces conventional action films, and his latest effort, Gunslingers, becomes the second Western in his repertoire. Though faint praise, this could be his best work yet, mainly because Nicolas Cage genuinely engages with his role. However, this doesn't necessarily imply a stellar performance; within a community of reformed criminals seeking a peaceful existence, now at odds with a foe aiming to exploit their bounty, the veteran actor manages to infuse some energy into an otherwise tedious narrative while portraying Ben, a fervent Bible believer with a strained voice, donning cross-shaped sunglasses.

      It's often noted that sometimes an actor seems to belong to a completely different film than their co-stars, and this instance takes that idea to a new level. The plot revolves around the erratic and sociopathic Robert Keller (played by Jeremy Kent Jackson, who portrays the character with a frenzied energy to offset the script’s lack of substance), assigned to retrieve his brother Thomas (Stephen Dorff) and bring him back to New York for punishment over a justifiable crime to avoid repercussions.

      Thomas finds refuge in a saloon alongside Ben and numerous other nondescript patrons. The only characters that manage to stand out are the saloon owner, Jericho (Costas Mandylor), and his daughter, Bella (Scarlet Stallone). Moments earlier, Val (Heather Graham) enters the saloon with her daughter to deliver an important message to Thomas, alluding to a past connection and her escape from Robert’s reach.

      For nearly an hour, Brian Skiba rehashes the same action sequences of characters exchanging gunfire from inside and outside the saloon, primarily focused on the moment the trigger is pulled and then cutting to the resulting deaths. Some of these deaths, such as falling from a building awning, are repeated. The plethora of generic henchmen killed highlights that their faces are covered with bandanas so the filmmaker can reuse the same actors in repetitive death scenes, resembling a video game that has exhausted its budget for varied enemy designs. Ultimately, the lone source of amusement lies in Nicolas Cage shouting about Jesus and faith, while looking absurd doing so. This is further hindered by ridiculous sound effects and inconsistent color grading that appears washed out, fluctuating even within the same scene.

      Predictably, there are clichéd dramatic tensions between the brothers that gradually unfold towards the film's conclusion, but most viewers will likely lose interest by that point. This is unfortunate because once Gunslingers leaves the saloon, Brian Skiba displays a hint of creativity with the final action sequence, involving characters attempting to eliminate villains while trying to save others from a hanging. This segment shows moderate inspiration and enables Nicolas Cage to further embrace his eccentricity. While such quirks could be channeled into a genuinely compelling character, the fact that this is largely what the film has to offer underscores the overall low quality of the production.

      Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★

      Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He serves as the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd.