Tex, the Passive-Aggressive Gunslinger (2000)

movie

(87)

Country: USA
Genres: Comedy, Short, Western
Release:
Director: Brian Sawyer
Writers: Brian Sawyer
Language: English
Stars: Bob Balaban , Charles Rocket (1949–2005) , Camilla Campanale , Sam Menning , Robert Munns , Ginna Rutter , Carolyn Townsend , Avery Goodman
Runtime: 10 min
Awards: 1 nomination
AKA: Tex, the Passive-Aggressive Gunslinger (United States of America) , Tex, the Passive-Aggressive Gunslinger
Plot: I love everything about this compact joy of a film, a sly anachronistic wink of a work that both honors a timeless genre while lacing it with the psychoanalytical hemlock of our screwy, modern world. Only Bob Balaban among our current crop of A-list character actors could pull this off to perfection, and he does! Makes you wonder, truth to tell, what an analyst might do with Billy the Kid or Jesse James on the couch. The supporting cast couldn't have been chosen more carefully or put to better use, all the way from the bad guy gunslinger whose clothes (even his hat!) seem miraculously pressed, to the old-timer Fuzzy Knight lookalike and the hoot of a saloon girl that Miss Kitty would love to hate. The black and white cinematography is just right, and, combined with a movie set right out of one of those old Warner Brothers TV Westerns of the 1950s _ heck, it might even BE one of those old sets _ sucks you right in, just as "Maverick," "The Rifleman," "Restless Gun," "Johnny Ringo" and the like did way back-when. Even the opening, with the deserted street and the tumbling tumbleweeds, nails the feel of those old shows. "Tex" pokes fun both at us as gullible Old West fans and the genre that we innocently and somewhat misguidedly created in the mid-20th century. We meant well _ but, oh my! A work of love, this. Bravo!
IMDB:tt0262823