Jane Got a Gun

Filmed in early 2013 and just now getting a halfhearted theatrical release, Jane Got a Gun looks and feels like a troubled production. You don't have to read the long behind the scenes story of this movie's trip to the big screen, which includes a variety of actors and directors who came and left the project, as well as last-minute script changes.  All you have to do is watch the film itself, and see how choppily it's been put together.  It feels like whole chunks of the film are missing, with multiple clumsily placed flashbacks to fill in the gaps.  Despite the talent up on the screen (and there are some good actors here), the movie ultimately is a very long and slow trip to nowhere in particular.

Set in the dusty New Mexico territory of 1871, Jane Hammond (Natalie Portman) is a wife and mother taking care of her young daughter as the film opens, when her husband, Bill (Noah Emmerich), comes riding in, nearly dead from multiple gunshot wounds in his back.  After treating him the best she can, Bill informs her that the Bishop gang, led by notorious outlaw Colin McCann (Ewan McGregor), are headed to their home to seek revenge for something that happened in the past. (The movie is intentionally vague at this point.) Seeking help, Jane drops her daughter off at a friend's, then heads to the home of a former lover, Dan Frost (Joel Edgerton), who is not very happy to see her.  She pleads with him to help her husband and her in the upcoming attack, and he at first refuses.  But, by the time Jane has ridden into the nearby town to pick up some supplies for the battle to come, Dan has apparently changed his mind, and begins to help her prepare her home in order to fight back.

While Jane and Dan get ready to fight, the movie gives us one flashback after another, filling us in on the history between these characters.  These flashbacks are usually introduced with unintentionally funny subtitles which read "1864 - Seven years before", in case we can't figure out for ourselves that 1864 happened seven years before 1871, where the present action is taking place.  The next flashback is five years earlier, then eight, then it's six years earlier...It gets to the point that you need a scorecard to keep track of what happened and when.  Most of these flashbacks revolve around how Jane and Dan used to be in love, but then he was sent off to fight in the war, and Jane somehow found herself in the arms of Bill by the time Dan came home.  Of course, there's a reason for this, and this will be explained in yet another flashback.  Further flashbacks will explain the bad blood between Jane's family and the gang of outlaws coming to her house. 

All of this information is unveiled to us slowly (as in very slowly).  I enjoy a slow burn movie as much as the next guy, but Jane Got a Gun sometimes feels like an experiment to see how much you can slow down a story with endless flashbacks and exposition dialogue.  Some of the information the flashbacks provide give us very little, such as the one that seems to consist solely of Jane and Dan happily frolicking through fields of wheat, then taking a hot air balloon ride.  I guess this is supposed to show us they were happy once.  Good for them.  The movie moves so lethargically to its destination, refusing to build any tension or dramatic interest.  When all the secrets and personal histories have finally been revealed to us, it's time for the big shootout scene, which never creates the suspense that it should.  But by then, I was happy just to have an action sequence of some sort, instead of another scene of the main characters talking about times long ago.

This is one of those movies where a documentary on the making of it would be more interesting than the actual movie itself.  As I mentioned, the movie not only sat on the studio's shelf for a long time (only to have the studio go bankrupt, and have it get picked up by another one), but the production itself was plagued with delays, problems, fights on the set between the talent, actors signing on then leaving the project, the original director leaving, and the script being constantly tinkered with in order to save what was obviously a doomed production.  Clearly, this script must have been very different at some point in order to attract talent like Portman (who also produced the film), Edgerton (who took a stab at the script at one point, and is credited as a co-writer) and McGregor.  The finished project, however, feels like a lot of stuff got left on the cutting room floor.  What wound up on the screen is a narrative nightmare that jumps around to different time periods with little sense of time or place.

Maybe Jane Got a Gun was troubled from the start, and no matter how many talented people they threw at it, they weren't going to save it.  It certainly feels like it.  While I'm sure this film started out with the best of intentions, it ended up as one of those movies that the cast have long, sad talks with their agents about.

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