With the debut of Dead For a Dollar coming up at the end of the month, fans of western films have been counting down till they can see it in theatres. To help kill the time until then, distributor Quiver Distribution has released a trailer. The protagonist, a bounty hunter, faces fresh obstacles from an old enemy and a new bounty that tests him in ways he hadn’t anticipated. The teaser follows last week’s exclusive release of a gorgeous new poster for the film. Since Max Borlund (Christoph Waltz) and Joe Cribbens (Willem Dafoe) hate each other so much that they will not even sit in the same room together without wanting to murder each other, this just serves to heighten their mutual hatred for each other.
When Joe is finally set free, he will make it his life’s work to establish his innocence by eliminating Borlund. Also, Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Ms Maiselcharacter, )’s Rachel Kidd, is shown in the teaser to be hiding out from her abusive husband despite being marketed as a heroine in distress throughout the wild west. She’s well aware that her husband has hired a bounty hunter to track her down so that he may kill her for running away. That’s why she’s training so hard for the day she might have to defend herself.
Walter Hill, director of such critically praised recent films as 48 Hours and Geronimo, helms Dead For a Dollar. At the 79th Venice Film Festival next week, Hill will premiere Dead For a Dollar and receive the Cartier Glory to the Filmmaker Award.
These awards recognise individuals who have achieved significant breakthroughs in some aspect of the motion picture business. Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera had a high appreciation for Hill’s body of work when he made the announcement. In a formal statement, he said: If for no other reason than to transcend conventions in his ceaseless search for a constructive relationship with the legacy of the legend of America, inherited from classic cinema, on the other hand, for authentic modernity in ethics and form, Walter Hill constantly redraws the contours of the genres that form the horizons of his cinema.
Whether it’s a western, a thriller, a horror film, a war film, or a detective movie, Hill always finds a way to use the genre as a springboard for formal & narrative geometries that aim to recount modern times through genre stereotypes and propose an aesthetic point of view that ignores & goes beyond the traditional demarcation line between good and evil. Even though he is an auteur in every sense of the word, Walter Hill has no trouble calling himself a specialist in action films, in which the violence is stylized to varying degrees, and in which he is constantly experimenting with how to use the various possibilities offered by the film language in his search for new visual effects. The debut of Dead For a Dollar occurs on September 30.
Synopsis
Max Borlund, a seasoned bounty hunter, is deep in Mexico when he runs upon Joe Cribbens, a professional gambler and bandit he once put to prison. According to the scenario provided to Max, Buffalo Soldier Elijah Jones has kidnapped the wife of a wealthy businessman. Max’s job is to discover and return Rachel Kidd. Ultimately, Max must fight for his reputation.