For a different outlook, women have to be leading more of the Westerns. The Emmy-winning Netflix miniseries Godless (2017) certainly helped set some things in motion, and another recent miniseries with Emily Blunt, called The English, was just amazing. In recent years it has been fun watching household name Heather Graham (The Hangover, Boogie Nights) embrace the genre having most recently starred in The Last Son and just wrapped up shooting The Gunslingers alongside Nicolas Cage. But now there is a Western thriller entitled Place of Bones.
It is unfortunate that as a horror-thriller Place of Bones doesn’t rely enough on home invasion movie’s horror aspects. While generally direct with its Western tropes, Tom Hopper is solid as a bad guy and the female-empowered energy throughout breathes fresh new life into the genre.
Graham’s plays a lovable, take-no-crap mother instead of bones and hasn’t stripped away any of the energy or charm she had in Austin Powers 25 years ago. The character also has an excellent symbolic name, Pandora, in her new Western, but when we meet her as she is already a reclusive outlaw whose journey was not easy. She is widowed; therefore “place of bones” refers to her husband’s grave which is next to her solitary abode located up in the mountains.
A sad scene although peaceful sometimes as Pandora lives confidently amidst a routine that involves Hester (Brielle Robillard), her teenage daughter. Anything with Graham in it has to be likeable. She takes on a southern accent which is quite unique while dealing with this only child of hers for safety purposes only – though safety becomes more endangered as we move along, just like every good western thriller should have promised.
After being shot in the leg, Calhoun (Corin Nemec) falls on Pandora’s doorstep with his bloody and bullet-ridden leg. She may be familiar with the phrase ‘when death comes a-calling,’ as she is not exactly thrilled by Calhoun’s uninvited visit which he had at first fallen literally into her porch steps just now.
This woman Pandora is certainly the moral compass of the story – so we choose her as our favorite character. Therefore, she does not completely disown Calhoun when he unexpectedly visits her. Instead, she brings him home, treats his injuries and feeds him; however, Place of Bones always lives through a line of female empowerment meaning that Pandora will not just yield to a man standing before her. And she is serious about it — which can be seen in what Graham finds in her beautiful but piercing eyes? Oh! Is she aging?
She wants him gone soonest since she’s definitely smart enough to figure out that Calhoun’s sense of shadiness manifests itself following his recovery and attempts to evade questions regarding how he got himself into such situations. In fact, by the time we finally find out who Calhoun really is, he is already being pursued by an infamous bank robber and his gang of thieves. The mastermind out for Calhoun’s life goes by the name Bear John portrayed with great intensity by Tom Hopper from The Umbrella Academy, a character far removed from his recent likeable role in Space Cadet.
Hopper’s Bear John, at least, gives Place of Bones a good dose of shoot ’em up just when it seems that everything is dying down irretrievably at Pandora’s home. It is definitely funny seeing her and Calhoun argue with each other and hurl Southern-drawl insults back and forth once in a while, but the film takes too long to actually make its point. Consequently, we do not get enough of Tom Hopper’s well-played villain.
When the showdown finally comes it fuels Pandora’s fierce empowered soul and she more than handles herself. Watching Pandora vent her grief through violent acts of catharsis was satisfying but there’s no escaping the fact that it is a predictable conclusion played out by the numbers. There could have been more emphasis on the extreme violence advertised for this movie with Place of Bones coming nowhere close to being comparable to must-see western thrillers in terms of intensity or innovation; however, it still works as an adequate film that concentrates on life after loss for one widow.
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