Review of Posse

Introduction

If history is written by the winners, then the White Man won the West. At least that`s the impression we usually get from the long tradition of the Western in Hollywood. The Europeans came saw and conquered the noble savage, took his land and built a great nation. The Chinese built the railroads, while the African stayed on the plantations. What a load of Hooey! If there is anything that the United States is proud of extolling is that it is the land of the free, a great melting pot where all men are created equal and the lowliest child can one day grow up to be President. While the history of the United States may be fractured and bloody, with few people living up to that noble ideal, it still is a nation that is built on the toil and dreams of people of all ethnicities and backgrounds. While Hollywood has been slow to recognise that fact, it falls to visionary filmmakers to fill in the gaps in the story of the Wild West, filmmakers like… Mario Van Peebles?

Posse is the story of the black cowboy. The US Army, though segregated still had black regiments back in 1898, the 10th being one such example. Jessie Lee sentenced by a court to serve in the military leads this regiment reluctantly, following the orders of a martinet Colonel Graham, who considers the 10th as useful cannon fodder. When the 10th get ordered behind enemy lines in Cuba to raid for arms and instead find a shipment of gold, it soon becomes apparent that they are being set up. A fact that is soon confirmed when Graham shows up in force to claim the booty and finish with Jessie Lee`s group. It seems like an ideal time to desert, and a tense stand off erupts in gunfire, seeing Colonel Graham`s pretty boy looks creased by a bullet. Jessie Lee takes the survivors of his regiment, as well as the gold and heads back to the United States. While everyone else is set on living up the high life, Jessie Lee has got vengeance on his mind. When a bitter Colonel Graham interrupts the party, the rest decide to join Jessie Lee and accompany him to Freemanville, Jessie Lee`s hometown where he has a date with destiny, all the while with Graham dogging their trail.

Video

Posse comes with a clear, sharp and vibrant 2.35:1 anamorphic transfer. If there is a hint of grain or some print damage, it`s hardly worth mentioning. The widescreen ratio is put to good use, making sure every terrain type in the United States makes an appearance in the film. There are a lot of atmospheric camera moves at odd angles, much use of slow motion, tints and flashback sequences. One hilarious blooper left in the film has a character with an eye-patch on his forehead revealing an untouched and healthy eye.

Audio

An MGM back catalogue disc invariably means the usual five soundtracks. DD 2.0 Stereo English, German, French Italian and Spanish are all here for your listening pleasure. The Stereo upmix is fairly good, sending bullets flying from the surround speakers, but the action and music does tend to drown out the English dialogue on occasion.

Features

Trailer and subs

Conclusion

Posse is the kind of undisciplined mess of a movie that you get when a star is allowed to indulge himself behind a camera lens. The story is thin, exceedingly so and there is barely enough to fill the 105 minutes. It`s a simple story of vengeance, with little or no meat to it, yet the narrative is clumsy and disjointed, making it hard for the viewer to find a hook with the story. The film commences with a series of false starts, as characters are introduced only to be dispensed with a few scenes later, and it`s only a good third of the way into the film that you get a handle on what the story is about, and who the main characters really are.

Mario Van Peebles storytelling method leaves much to be desired, as he opts for the monochrome flashback sequence time and again to punctuate the main character Jessie Lee`s motivations (also played by Mario Van Peebles). His performance as Jessie Lee is wooden and insubstantial, which I assume he felt needed exposition with the flashbacks, but when every bad guy dispatched, or every brief moment of reflection presages yet another camera tilt and colour change, then the film rapidly loses pace and enters the realm of tedium. He also feels that he needs to wield the camera with a heavy touch, so the film often becomes a disjointed sequence of scenes, where he can demonstrate his directorial prowess, with slow motion, atmospheric camera moves, and cinematic clichés galore. There are horsemen riding into the sunset, riding out of the sunset, silhouetted against the twilight sky, old men laughing maniacally as a gunfight goes down. If you`ve seen it in a Western before, it`s here. There`s barely enough room for the already weak story.

There are moments worth mentioning on a positive note. Stephen Baldwin is of some entertainment value as the gambler Little J despite a blatantly PC message that he has to deliver. I did find some of the anachronistic dialogue Weezie delivered endearing, and there is a wonderful Mr T moment when Obobo (`Tiny` Lister) refuses to be smuggled in a coffin. Then there is Tone Loc, who is a pleasure to watch, or rather hear in everything he does, unfortunately he bows out too soon.

However not even the continued presence of Tone Loc would be enough to rescue this picture from the depths of dreariness. There is action aplenty in this film, gunfights punch ups, explosions and stunts, but for all the action it is ultimately a triumph of boredom and dumbed-down storytelling.