Customer Reviews

Journeyman

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

An old man is shot by a band of outlaws in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. One of his grandsons is kidnapped and brutalized by his grandfather's murderers, the other hides and is later taken in by a passing priest. Roll title credits and roll forward "Thirteen Years Later...."
The kidnapped son becomes an outlaw himself, a spaghetti outlaw whose character is known as the Morphinist (Brad Hunt.) The younger brother, presumably raised by Catholic priests, is listed in the credits as the Journeyman (Daniel Lapaine.)
THE JOURNEYMAN is one of those low budget productions that surprises you with its good acting and smart look. This is to date director's James Crowley's only feature film. He's a professional "location manager"- in other words, he scouts out cool looking locations for films. THE JOURNEYMAN's dry and desolate setting, southern Texas along the Rio Grande River, look just right for this violent movie.
Its premise is intriguing, as well. After his leg is shattered when his horse is shot and falls on it(this is the same incident that causes the outlaw gang to desert him and further reinforces the revenge motive) the Morphinist's leg is amputated and he's given morphine to quench the pain. In short order he is an addict and a brutal, remorseless killer. He becomes especially jittery when too long from the needle.
Hunt is good as the wraithlike young killer. On the commentary track Crowley tells us that he lost fourteen pounds while filming the movie, and indeed by the end of the movie Hunt looks gaunt and played out. It's interesting to get an extended back-story on the Man With No Name. The genesis of evil is too often ignored, and although the Morphinist seemingly kills on a whim ("If he bothers you, shoot him" he tells one of his outlaw partners in an early scene) by the end of the movie he's a sympathetic character. Unfortunately the Journeyman, the younger brother who grows up in a seminary, isn't studied nearly as closely. In fact, I had a hard time figuring out who the young man joining Ledbetter's posse was until I watched the commentary track. There were other scenes that needed to be fleshed out, I believe, to give the audience a better handle on both son's back stories.
If you're a fan of westerns don't be put off by the low-budget origins or the relatively unknown cast - THE JOURNEYMAN is a very good western. My only complaint is in regards to the script, which I believe needed some doctoring, and the commentary track, which is hard to hear because they never lower the volume on the sound track when director and producer are talking. Sometimes their voices are drowned out by the sound of the movie.

I disagree with Allan. I loved this film. True, it is confusing at times, but well worth seeing.

Character actors Corbin and Gilliam are great, but this clearly is Brad Hunt's film, from the start. He's a remarkable talent and deserves recognition for it. Not for one second do you doubt that he's an empty shell of a man who's given up on searching for real meaning in his life. It's an incredible performance, and I only hope that he's destined for stardom, in the future.

If you don't care for gritty, downbeat westerns, this one might not be your cup-of-tea (Unforgiven is a walk in the forest by comparison), but otherwise you need to see it for Brad Hunt's stunning performance.

The Journeyman is a western which is truly relevant to the hip hop generation. It is a tale of violence begetting violence generation upon generation. It is a tale of the erosion of a man's psyche because of drug addiction. It is a story of sin, but no redemption. It is a story of purposeless hatred and the love of two brothers undistilled by time and space.

Aside from the intriguing story, the sets and locations are really wonderful. The set dressing and props are perfect, down to the most minor piece of horsetack. After viewing this movie several times I noticed that the guns, fashions and machinery changed along with the century. I found this movie truly fascinating. It is a western on a par with The Searchers or The Unforgiven. This film is the most opulent and impressive low budget western ever made.

I became interested in seeing this film when I stumbled across the remote location where it was made in West Texas. Several of the buildings are still standing.

The plot is somewhat difficult to follow because of oddly placed flashbacks but the overall theme, two brothers, one upright and the other a murderer, is a common one in story telling.

Its a somewhat strange and violent movie, showing many innocent people killed and I would not recommend it for viewing by children.

This was a very drawn out western and kind of weird too. It is better than some...certainly worse than others.

It is a revenge movie that develops to a semi-surprising end. An ok movie to see once,but, probably a one time event for me. If you are a Willie Nelson cowboy fan.....this is not for you.If you sneeze ...you might miss him.

I ordered this film, from the past reviews, and found this to be a unique western. The script was different. Without giving too much away, it is of two brothers.. one bad, the other good. I found this to be an exceptional western, as most westerns are. A small but good one. Cheers. Robert Warren. Melbourne, Australia.

The "Journeyman" is the most confusing Western I have ever seen, and I've seen hundreds and hundreds. Filmed along the border in the Big Bend Country of Texas the story is a complete mishmash to the point of sometimes being unable to determine which character is which. Don't be misled by Willie Nelson's name in the cast: he's killed off in the first minute. The writing, direction, and acting (except for Barry Corbin) are all abysmal. You will be disappointed in the film.

Don't be fooled by the low budget...this film proves that a story can be well told even without the filter of millions of dollars. The characters of the two brothers in Journeyman are so alike, you might be unsure if it is just one actor playing two roles. A blend of reality, and morphine induced surrealism evoke--besides what you see on the screen--the image of one who is lost, in more ways than one, wandering through God's Country in search of some answer, be it through either redemption or damnation. Both brothers seem lost in their own right, yet while one seems to seek an almost 'Doc Holiday-ish' end by incurring as much violence as he can become swept up into, the other is apparently looking for his brother in hopes of actually saving him from an inexorable doom. Their parts are played to perfection by Brad Hunt and Daniel LaPaine, with Hunt being 'The Morphinist', and LaPaine as the 'The Journeyman'. LaPaine has been apparently raised and educated by a priest who finds him in hiding after the murder of his grandfather (Willie Nelson). After the priest rides away with the young boy, there is a lapse of 13 years, and the only clues one really gets as to his religious education are his silent observation (slow to speak, slower to act), a few moments of concentrated prayer, and his refusal to be goaded by a self-aggrandizing tough, even after he is struck by the braggart. Hunt, on the other hand, has been literally dragged and carried off by the very men who murdered their grandfather, and there are a few references to what happened to him in those 13 years, but these are only through his own drug hazed memory. In fact, his mind has become so imbibed with the morphine he is addicted to, that he kills a Mexican rancher who only somewhat resembles one of the men responsible for what can only be a ruined life. On the surface, it might be easy to regard this film with a host of other garden variety western chases. However, it is, in fact, a powerful indictment of the eventual and inevitable destruction of the vengeant mind. Hunt is a splendid picture of a man laying waste to everyone about him, clearly hoping for someone to put him out of his misery, and perfectly willing all the while to bring down any who cannot. Though some of the supporting characters seem almost comical in their disproportionate rendering, they too portray a wild eyed sense of a grasping to find and maintain that control of a life that seems to have no direction. This is not merely another period film with neat accuracy in 'horse tack', and pissed off guys blazing at each other with sixguns. No, this film will engage your sense of right and wrong--what's more, the root of a mans' pursuit of his own rights and wrongs, and at a deeper level than is found in most other films of any genre. This is still a "man's" movie, but even more, it is a thinking man's movie.

As a fan of Westerns for over 60 years,I never tire of them.As a kid,every Saturday afternoon we watched Westerns in the local Cinema; though we called it the theatre. That was the era of Roy Rogers,Gene Autry and my favorite,The Durango Kid.In those days the local theatre had a different Western every Friday and Saturday.Most of them were in B&W,but color was just starting.
These Westerns were always straight forward,you always knew who the good guys and the bad guys were,and the good guys always won. There were no hidden messages or weirdness to these yarns at all.Lots of man to man fistfights,lots of gunfights,stagecoach and railroad chases and ,crashes and robberies.The Army often arrived in the nick of time to the accompanyment of bugles and the Injuns always got the worst of it. Settlers got hit pretty hard ;but in the end,Good always won out over Bad,and the ending was happy.The hero always lived to fight another day .The soundtracks were excellent.
The comparison with this movie,and what we got during the times of "High Noon","Shootout at the OK Corral","Big Valley" John Wayne, an later with the "Spaghetti Westerns" couldn't be greater.
In this Western you are going to meet actors and characters you've never heard of ;that is except for Willie Nelson and if you blink your eye,you might miss him all together.If you didn't see his name in the credits;you might even say to yourself,"Gee,that old guy looked like Willie"
Apparently Willie drove 10 hours to get to the location where the movie was shot.That had to be 9 hours longer than he spent ther during the filming. doubt if he even stayed overnite.IIt would have made no difference to the movie if Willie or anyone else had played the role.He must have owed them a favor to get his name on the credits.
To say the movie was low budget ,is an understatement. One could believe that the cost of renting and feeding the horses and travel to the site must have been the major expenses involved.oh yeah,then there was the cost of the film.
The storyline is about as simple as one can imagine,the soundtrack is even simpler;,any historical connection is absent,but the scenery and and quality of the color and images is pretty good.
When watching the film,the viewer has to pay pretty close attention to what is going on or else he'll lose the train of thought in the story.The movie is a mental exercise as much as anything else and ,though I haven't done it ;one should really watch it a few times to really figure what it is really all about.
As for this fan of Westerns,give me the" old stuff" like Wyatt Earp and ,Tombstone" "Lonesome Dove"," Pale Rider","The Good,the Bad and the Ugly",and actors like Lee Van Clef,and Eastwood;or eventhe kind of thing we got in the great "Deadwood" series. This movie would be more suitable to what I might describe as a "Mental Western".