If you have a Western with a title like Bordello, you figure, “hey if the movie is crap, at least there might be some prurient content to soften the blow. But, no. This misfire relies on story to sub for bodices. But there’s no story. Not much of one anyway.
On paper it sounds promising:
“1889. New Mexico. Five women working in a bordello in the Old West struggle to protect Angel, the 7-year-old girl left in their care, from being sold into a life of child prostitution.”
That’s an intriguing one-liner that suggests peril and conflict- basic elements of drama. But in a 90 minute film, it takes 30 minutes for one of the main characters, the proprietor, Enoch (Kris Holden-Ried) to go to town to buy rat poison. It’s as mundane as it sounds. Time to tell a story is running out, folks.
By the time the film ambles toward the story advertised above, there is almost no tie to build a dramatic arc. It’s a lot of charging dirty guys 50 cents to take baths so that they can be with the ladies of the house. The Sherriff is menacing enough (Frank J. Zupancic) but he’s barely onscreen enough to give us a stake in his nefarious intentions.
Production values are solid – costumes are pro. Acting is hit and miss, but it all comes down to a screenplay that is front-loaded with nothing, and then has to rush it’s final act just as things might be getting interesting.
Bordello |Digital | VOD platforms starting February 21st.