I'm going to say it right off the bat that I didn't find Redskin all that great. Its a good movie with interesting themes and good writing but it just didn't grasp me. The main issue with this movie, and what annoys me sometimes with movies is the Hollywood ending they throw in at the end. Wing Foot gets the girl, the bad guys get arrested/shot, the Indians get rich off oil and Wing Foot gets accepted. Mostly just personal preference but the ending all the same felt too...perfect for lack of a better term.
The subplot (or overarching plot if you like it that way) of advancing a culture by losing some customs or to stay with the old ways was well thought out and was presented probably the best way it could have been. It connected well with Wing Foot's struggle of acceptance and acted as a good backdrop for most of the action. Speaking of action the scene with Wing Foot escaping from the Pueblo people was excellent. It was almost like watching a free running video at times. Also how the writers teased at a Romeo and Juliet plot with the Navajo and the Pueblo people, then deconstructed it with Corn Blossom drinking a bottle of "poison" (hilariously labeled just poison) but then jumping up and running off before anyone could think to check a pulse.
On the mention of subplots, compared to Within Our Gates Redskin manages to keep the subplots clean, easy to understand and even manages to pull them all together in the end.
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Yes--the "Poison" bottle does evoke Romeo and Juliet, only with a happy ending.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the "perfect" Hollywood ending. I think it is a bit annoying how a lot of movies always tend to end that way. But seeing as how this was a movie that was made a while ago, audiences probably weren't as annoyed with it as they are today because they haven't seen as many movies as people have today with that same kind of ending. When it first came out, I'm sure most people thought it was a great way to end the story. But because I have seen so many other movies with similar endings, I was also annoyed by it.
ReplyDelete~Megan McKenna
That's the issue, Megan: we're coming to these movies with all the intervening decades already having passed, so what the original audiences may have seen as fresh, we see as a cliche.
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