#65: In a Valley of Violence / Arsenal

Travolta/Cage

This week, Travolta returns to the fold.... in a good movie this time?!

Nathan and Clint break down two tales of violence and revenge, both throwbacks in their own way: one to the spaghetti Westerns of the '60s and '70s, the other to, I guess, Deadfall?

First up is Arsenal, a chintzy DTV Cage vehicle with a twist: this time, apropos of nothing, he's reprising his over-the-top role as mustachioed drug kingpin Eddie King from his brother Christopher Coppola's chintzy 1993 thriller Deadfall. Once again, he's paired with a bland lead (Adrian Grenier, whose face makes you always wonder whether the movie you're watching is a fake Vincent Chase joint) in a disjointed, overly-stylized tale of brothers pitted against each other in a battle for their own souls. But this time, with a lot more snot-nosed Cage weeping every single line in a Tony Clifton wig.

Fret not, though, for sunrise is just over the horizon in Ti West's slick, darkly funny Western pastiche In a Valley of Violence. Taking the same arch approach he takes to horror homages like House of the Devil and X, West follows a lonely man (Ethan Hawke) running from a violent past with little but his trusty pup by his side. But when tragedy befalls him (two guesses as to what happens to that dog), Hawke goes full Western John Wick on the cocky gunslinger failson (James Ransone) of the eminently pragmatic town marshal (John Travolta, mutton-chopped and delightful).

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