Friday, April 20, 2018

Delayed Reaction: High Noon

The Pitch: A real-time countdown to a shoot out.

A town Marshall in the wild west tries to gather support from the townsfolk when he realize that a gang is on their way to kill him.

How has High Noon not been remade a dozen times? It's a simple, compelling concept that sounds like it would be easy enough to pull off. It's basically one action sequence and a bunch of talking for the 80 minutes before it. That sounds like a low-budget dream for a filmmaker trying to prove his/her mettle before taking over the next Jurassic Park movie. I suppose the Rio Bravo slant is a bit more straightforward and has been remade a lot. I don't see a lot of High Noon imitations. I don't even see the "in real time" trick used much.

High Noon's reputation precedes it a bit too much. It's pretty good. I certainly like the idea of it more than the actual thing. The early scenes when Gary Cooper is trying and failing to get support are nicely anti-"Hollywood", but I don't feel the tension rising that much. Perhaps that's just because I was so certain that Cooper would get out of it fine in the end. The final shootout was nicely under-produced. It wasn't quite big enough to justify the build though.
I think Cooper is terrific. It's smart that the villain was almost entirely developed through second-hand stories. He's more of a boogey-man than a man. The age gap between Cooper and Grace Kelly was a little too stark to ignore.

I'll admit, this is a movie I'm feeling bad that I didn't like it a lot more. I don't know if this is a bias again older movies at play or if I'm just not acclimated to the pacing of a movie of this ilk. I just can't find a lot of excitement for it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend

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