POSSE
A film review by Max Hoffmann
Copyright 1993 Max Hoffmann
Rating: 8.5 (B+, ***) a "should see"
Running length: 105 min
Rating: R
World Premiere 5/5/93 SF Film Festival
Release date 5/14/93
DIR: Mario Van Peebles
PROD: Preston Homes, Jim Steele
SCRPLAY: Sy Richardson, Dario Scardapane
CAMERA: Peter Menzies
EDITOR: MARK CONTE
CAST: Mario Van Peebles, Stephen Baldwin, Charles Lane, Tiny Lister, Jr.,
Big Daddy Kane, Billy Zane, Pam Grier, Tone Loc, Richard Jordan and
Melvin Van Peebles
IN A NUTSHELL: If you're like me and *hate* westerns, give this one a chance. The mostly black cast is makes for a more historically accurate view of the Old West than the white-bread Hollywood myopia we're accustomed to (8,000 cowboys, a third of the lot, were black!!) Strong direction, a cast that "clicks" and effective use of "post office mural" style cinematography. Flawed slightly by overuse of flashbacks, and heavy leaning on "eye for an eye" justice. *Very* violent, but forgivable. An appealing sex scene with the same level of explicitness as most Mel Gibson films.
This film held my interest from start to finish. Like many who remember their first westerns in the age of above ground nuclear testing, I've never been able to take this format seriously. We never saw 5 o'clock shadow on our heros, until the arrival of the spaghetti westerns in the 60's. But the faces were still white, and Indians were usually played by well-tanned Italian actors. Add to the mix the mandatory love interest, who'd made it across the plains with her lipstick and virtue intact.
Van Pebbles sets the record straight, with a more realistic "color palette." There were lots of blacks in the old west, including about a third of the original settlers in Los Angeles. Many were genuine heroes who couldn't cross the color-line into an honest obituary or a place in the history books. Our Anglo-centric view has excluded blacks from most American history, outside the Civil War. A few low-budget "race" films in the 30's portrayed black cowboys, but the runs were short and the audiences segregated. Placing this missing ingredient (black cowboys) in center spot light makes a tired old format interesting for the first time in recent memory.
Van Peebles plays "Jesse Lee," a "buffalo soldier," conscripted from prison for "life time military service." (He's in prison for having attempted to avenged the white-hate induced murder of his father.) The film opens with him at the center of the Spanish-American war (where there were two major divisions of brothers, including an all-black platoon who's heavy casualties made it safe for Teddy Roosevelt to gallup up San Juan Hill). Van Peebles lays it on pretty thick with the totally despicable, pretty-boy racist captain, who commands Jesse to murder a fellow soldier for his amusement. (Though this is no more exaggerated than elements in most westerns.) Jesse assembles a "posse" of fellow black (and one white, Baldwin) outlaws to break free. A skirmish leaves the villain shy one eye and with enough motive to follow Jesse nearly to the ends of the earth, and the utopian community founded by freed slaves that is Jesse's ultimate destination.
Though no Mahatma Gandhi, "Little J" (Baldwin) is remarkably color-blind for his era, (the only color he sees is "green"). Van Peebles resists the temptation to make Baldwin a white "Sydney Poitier," and integrates him very well into the dynamics of the group. Initially, baser motives (like cheating at gambling) are the unifying force, but as the escape progresses the characters trust and know each other on a deeper level, and the color issue gradually fades.
Though much of the imagery deliberately harks to familiar spaghetti westerns, Van Peebles makes a much more engaging and sexy leading man than Clint Eastwood. Jesse isn't the totally remote, unknowable stranger. You get to know almost more than you want to about him due to the sepia flashbacks that appear with the annoying regularity of network TV commercials. "Jesse's" lusty reunion with the half Cherokee girlfriend he ditched covers the same amount of skin and positions as THIEF OF HEARTS, but the darker skin tones nearly earned the film a NC-17 rating. The white men on the ratings board still aren't comfortable viewing nude, black male flesh.
The film *is* intensely violent, (about the same body count as any Stephen Segal film) but I didn't find it particularly offensive. (I've always thought of westerns as bowling tournaments with bodies instead of pins.) Be prepared for a few closeups of exactly how a bullet passes through a face and more. More troubling is Jesse's "eye for an eye" approach to picking off everybody who ever did him wrong. (You begin to wonder if there's anyone in that time zone who didn't taunt him with flaming crosses, etc, due to the heavily populated flashbacks.) But westerns are never particularly realistic about cause and effect (e.g., how many heroes walked into a hail of badly aimed bullets, unscathed?)
Van Peebles brings several interesting "new" elements to the western format: the dynamics of authority and loyalty in the black township are intriguing. (E.g., do they kowtow to the white marshall, or fight back for what is rightfully theirs? Take a wild guess.) The dynamics between blacks and Indians, who found a lot of common ground in the crumbs the white establishment approved for them. A hero who isn't particularly "mysterious" or tongue-tied on what his motives are. A cast who can act. (This could be the vehicle to make Baldwin a star.) A mellow, rich palette for the camera. (Van Peebles revealed in the director's chat that he used low-arc lighting in most scenes, which make both white and black skin look attractive.) Clever use of humorous anachronisms (e.g., the whiney barber exclaiming, "Can't we just all get along?" during the Bonny and Clyde-like hail of bullets sprayed against his shop).
Van Peebles has just scratched the surface of unsung black history of the Old West. There appears to be enough pay dirt to warrant a lot more films like this. And who knows, if they make the violence a little less like an anatomy class, and stretch out the skin scenes, I just may learn to like westerns after all.
Prediction: expect much of the establishment press to downplay this film for (a) an unfair portrayal of unappetizing white characters (b) too much violence and (c) explicit sex scenes. None of these points are true with this film. If any critics are uncomfortable with the content of this film, they should blame our censored history text books.
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