User Reviews

With a very unusual title, and a very quirky story, I found this delightful movie on Netflix, via streaming video. The actors create unique, funny characters that are also interesting.

The year is 1878. Paul Gross is the Montana Kid, and he shows up in this small Canadian village of population 17, tied up and sitting backwards in the saddle, on his horse. Clearly he has been in some sort of disagreement, and he doesn't even know where he is.

We see very quickly that he is a gunman with a quick temper, and soon is threatening to add number 12 to his list of killings.

But this town has gentle people and, except for the one that Montana has, not a handgun anywhere. This makes things difficult to challenge the local blacksmith to a gunfight after Montana is insulted.

I have a special liking for Sienna Guillory and here she is Jane Taylor who needs help repairing her windmill so that her water pump will work. She bargains with Montana, she will provide the handgun if he will repair her windmill.

It is refreshing that no one actually gets shot and killed in this movie. Montana and Jane take a liking to each other, and with the help of the Canadian mounties they actually run the bounty hunters out of the country.

Nothing special or lasting here, just light entertainment. Paul Gross is very good in his role as the Montana Kid.

This was my first look at the two principals, and I thought Paul Gross and Sienna Guillory acquitted themselves well given what they had to work with. This was billed as a comedy, but finds itself in between all out funny and serious revenge Western, and the effect leaves one a little off balance. What's interesting is the set up, in which gunslinger Montana Kid (Gross) arrives in Barclay's Brush somewhere in Canada quite under duress. We come to learn that he's on the run from American bounty hunters, but in the mean time, decides to avail himself of the good will that the few citizens in town have to offer. That is, except for blacksmith Jack (Tyler Mane), who gets on Montana's wrong side by 'stealing' his horse. That whole scenario was the basis for Montana forcing a showdown with the giant horseshoer, but with no one in town owning a gun, expectations for an eventual gun battle get watered down by film's end.

The character I got the biggest kick out of had only a mere presence in the story, and that would have been Graham Greene as the Indian sidekick N'Kwala to Canadian Mountie J.T. Kent (Dustin Milligan). Greene had such a natural presence in the story, he made even the slightest mannerism noteworthy without uttering a sound. There were others in the picture that seemed destined to play a more significant role but just went nowhere, like school teacher Miss Alice (Laura Bertram) and the coy Miss Adell (Melody B. Choi). Even the leader of the bounty hunters, Ben Cutter (Callum Keith Rennie), seemed to have been wasted as a major villain. He was disadvantaged quite easily at the finale in a showdown that had no tension at all.

So where I was hoping for a likely contender to "Blazing Saddles", this one missed the mark, even though the film turned in a relatively sanitized story line with no foul language or sexually explicit scenes. But then again, we didn't really need a lot of passing gas jokes around the old campfire to make it likeable, and I'd recommend the picture as fine, family friendly movie fare.

When is a Western not quite your average run-of-the-mill Western? When it's Canadian and it's "Gunless".

Paul Gross (magnificently) plays the Montana Kid, -- an American gun- slinger and outlaw who crosses over the Canadian border courtesy of a botched hanging and his wayward horse. Having arrived at a small village, half-dead and stinking to high heaven, the local community of a dozen or so individuals (including the village idiot) become obsessed with the Kid as his notoriety is legendary. The Kid manages to get into a situation with the village blacksmith (fueled by the fact that the blacksmith was doing the Kid a favor but the Kid doesn't see it that way) and this results in a duel. However, the blacksmith has no six-shooter therefore the Kid must provide him with one and the only gun available is broken. What will happen when the gun is finally repaired?

I don't want to give too much away but to say that the script is cleverly and masterfully written. There are plenty of dark comedic elements. Paul Gross could almost pass for young Jack Nicholson and plays the role of the Kid oozing with charisma and an acting charm that immediately won me over. Time and care is taken to build the characters in the village without over-burdening you. The characters are likable, appealing and entertaining.

If you like your movies full of mindless violence, cursing or shots crammed with 110 MPH computer generated objects, then this movie is not for you as there is none of the above. If you are looking for extremely entertaining albeit different 'Western' that is dripping with great acting (courtesy of Paul Gross), great writing, dark (but family orientated) humor, great vistas and above all great entertainment, you can't go wrong with Gunless. It's a rare gem indeed.

Talk about a basket full of interesting characters! I would insist that this film be re-made by a major studio to improve the production values but they would spoil it. Look away from that and you see a charming little film with a believable story and a great script. I would have given it a 10 except for some of the words/phrases were not nineteenth century appropriate and it was just too short! More like a yarn than a film but I enjoyed every bit of it! And they say that I need to write more lines so I will tell you more. Lots of it was period appropriate I guess, and I did find the "philosophy" class to be most interesting. I especially appreciated the character of Jack, like Shawn's mirror, and his desire to just be normal that adds to it. The Chinese folks were portrayed without stereotyping which is good also.