Butcher's Crossing - Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Butcher's Crossing



Movie:
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Movie
How many times have we seen a major A (or A-) list Hollywood star fall from grace and be forced to slum it in DTV hell for years until they decide to retire. Nic Cage was once one of the biggest draws of the 1990s, giving us masterpieces like The Rock or Face/Off, only to disappear shortly after the last National Treasure film as the offers dried up. Francis Ford Coppola’s nephew (yes, he’s a Coppola) literally fell off the Hollywood bandwagon overnight after having squandered his massive fortune, left with having to care for his mentally ailing mother, and the people who signed his checks simply weren’t calling anymore. So, like many a fallen actor, Cage started taking whatever DTV trash films he could do (to the tune of 5+ a year) so that he could pay his bills for an easy payday. We’ve seen this before, right? Not many can actually make a come back from that (Stallone teetered on the edge for a while, and Van Damme made a small comeback), but somehow Nic Cage has found his niche straddling the line between low budget indie films, and somehow getting calls from the big boys to star in films like Renfield, the Across the Spiderverse films, and now Butcher’s Crossing.

Butcher’s Crossing has more akin to the likes of Mandy, PIG or Willy’s Wonderland than Face/Off, but it steel feels like an actual role that Cage can sink his teeth in rather than just cash in for a cheap pay day. The film is directed by documentarian Gabe Polsky, and taken from the 1960 western novel of the same name, and is surprisingly pretty good. It’s bleak, gritty, and NASTY at times, but Butcher’s Crossing is an adult western without all of the trappings of honor and fancy gunfights set up against the fall of the old west as the herds of buffalo have begun dying out from over hunting.

Will Andrews (Fred Hechinger) is an ivy league drop out who decides to leave his safety net at Harvard (and of course his father) and he heads out west to find some adventure. Will wants to go on a buffalo hunt before the last of the herds are lost forever to time, only to be ignored and pshaw’d by everyone he asks. That is, all but frontiersman and hunter Miller (Nic Cage) who sees Will’s trust fund money as a way to fund and expedition to a previously unknown wild herd of buffalo that he’s been keeping secret all these years.

The trip it self starts out easy enough. Miller is hard as nails, but is accommodating to the city clicker, and above all odds, manages to bring his crew to the mythical valley in Colorado that is home to a herd of buffalo that only Miller knows about. Gorging themselves on the unlimited targets at their disposal, Miller, Andrews and the other two members of the party soon find themselves up to their ears in corpses, fresh pelts, and a whoooooole lot of money coming their way. Only thing is, they end up over staying their welcome and can’t make it out of the mountain pass before winter sets in. Now the 4 men have to hunker down in the middle of nowhere and try to survive an icy winter, where their friendship, honor, and ultimately their sanity is put to the very test.

Honestly, I liked Butcher’s Crossing a lot. Cage fans are going to have a blast with this one, as the notorious over actor has really reigned in his more excessive tendencies. In his place is a grim and rather battle worn character who exudes a sense of confidence and depravity that counter balance each other throughout the film. Miller himself is borderline insane, yet not in that “scenery chewing, Nic Cage” sort of way that most of us know him as (no, there is no Wicker Man acting going on here), and is the perfect foil to Will Andrews, who is the story’s “rookie” so to speak. Will comes to the scene completely virgin and unaware of what’s waiting him out in the wilderness, only to slowly evolve and change as he and Miller become more and more alike as the story progresses.




Rating:

Not Rated by the MPAA




Video:

The Sony Blu-ray is spectacular as expected, with a sumptuous 2.00:1 AVC encode that looks incredible in HD. Color saturation is really impressive, but the film itself given a heavy bleached wheat and brown tone that doesn’t showcase a wide variety of primary colors. There are splashes of red with blood spots, and the white/blue tone of the Colorado snow still pops quite nicely though. The clarity throughout is excellent, with razor sharp facial details and great background imagery (check out the fine wood grain on the rough hewn cart that the lost woman is driving when she encounters the hunting party). Black levels are really good, with only a hint of banding and a few bits of mild crush up in the mountains to make it any less than perfect.









Audio:

The 5.1 DTS-HD MA track is quite pleasant as well, though not always as forceful and powerful as I might have hooped at times. The soundscape is reasonably wide, with the sounds of creaking wagons, clopping horses, and the thudding shot of those massive buffalo hunting rounds that Cage uses in his long gun. The environmental parts of the sound track are impressive enough, but it’s really the few gunshots, the galloping of horses and the fights that really bring out the spicy side of the mix. Bass is good and punchy, but also not wildly in your face either. Simply put, it’s a solid contender that should please most everyone, but still not go above and beyond if you know what I mean.












Extras:

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Final Score:
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There are some minor pacing issues in the 2nd act, and the film sort of drags in that center hump. But still, at the end of the day the characters and the genuine borderline “insanity” edge that Cage and Polsky dance around is intoxicating, and the film itself (despite being insanely dark and bleak) is a really enjoyable movie, easily on par with films like PIG or Sympathy for the Devil if you want to compare to another Nic Cage movie. The Blu-ray itself looks and sounds great, but Sony has left us with zero extras on the disc. Personally, I still find this package well worth checking out, no matter what your opinion on Cage’s career choices is.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Nic Cage, Fred Hechinger, Jeremy Bobb
Directed by: Gabe Polsky
Written by: Gabe Polsky, Liam Satre-Meloy, John Williams
Aspect Ratio: 2.00:1 AVC
Audio: English: DTS-HD MA 5.1
Subtitles: French, English SDH
Studio: Sony
Rated: R
Runtime: 107 minutes
Blu-Ray Release Date: December 26th, 2023

Recommendation: Good Watch

 

[tripplej]

Thanks for the review. I am curious on this one after the review so will look for it.

 

[Grayson Dere]

Thanks for reviewing this! I thought I knew all of Nic Cage's recent films, but this one totally flew under the radar for me

 

[Todd Anderson]

Me too, Grayson. Mike, you got my attention! Purchased!

 

[Sonnie Parker]

Could be a good one... Mike knows how to make us spend money, huh?

Cage has certainly turned out a bunch of movies over the last few years... now I know why. I was a fan of Pig, and looking forward to this one.