Blackthorn Reviews
October 6, 2011
It never lacks for the arid, vista-prone beauty of a classic Western, or for a sense of lived-in wear and tear that remains convincing even though it's more stylized than realistic.
Full Review
| Original Score: B
October 5, 2011
It's quite surprising that it takes two foreign filmmakers working in a foreign country to deliver one of the most compelling Westerns we've seen in quite some time.
Full Review
| Original Score: 9.5/10
October 4, 2011
This lightness finally overshadows the story's elegiac potential and leaves the toll of Cassidy's exile largely untapped, and even Shepard's magnetism can't lift Blackthorn above the status of cinematic lark.
October 4, 2011
Gil's alternative history gets one thing bang-on right: If Butch were to live into his senior days, he'd absolutely have to be played by Shepard.
Full Review
| Original Score: 3/5
October 3, 2011
A grittily entertaining and thoughtful example of just how good a western can be..an outlaw tale that is at once exciting and elegiac, elegant and earthy.
September 30, 2011
The performances by Shepard and Rea make this a movie worth seeing--as does the opportunity to visually drink in the seldom-seen beauty and stark magnificence of Bolivia's high country.
September 27, 2011
Aside from Shepard's wonderful work, there is a real sense of history here.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7/10
September 27, 2011
These days elegiac Westerns are the only kind anyone seems interested in making anymore. But when the result is a film as moody and beautiful as Mateo Gil's Blackthorn, that's not a bad thing at all.
Full Review
| Original Score: 7.9/10
August 24, 2011
Bolivia never looked better, but doesn't a film about outlaws deserve a faster pace?
Full Review
| Original Score: C
August 23, 2011
Like many an Old West prospector's treasure, while Mateo Gil's movie has a good-looking gloss it's substance is more fool's gold that fortune.
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5
May 6, 2011
Shepard delivers in spades, his character weary but just crackpot enough to survive.
May 1, 2011
A straight-on morality tale that embraces the iconography of the Old West, though set in the high altitude, lunar landscape of Bolivia
Full Review
| Original Score: 2.5/4
April 27, 2011
Mateo Gil certainly can be held responsible for turning the iconic outlaw into a paper-thin Clint Eastwood-Unforgiven clich.
Full Review
| Original Score: 1.5/4
April 26, 2011
Full Review
| Original Score: 4/5
April 25, 2011
[Sam Shepard] delivers a beautifully understated, world-weary turn that largely makes up for the slow-paced film's longueurs, and which in a better film could be described as iconic.