Blackthorn

I haven't had a chance to comment on the passing of Sam Shepard about a month ago. I wrote about his work as a playwright here but he was also a very good actor. Mostly he played supporting parts, and in his later years specialized in cranky old men. He plays one as the lead in the 2011 film Blackthorn.

Director Mateo Gil has a simple gimmick: imagining that Butch Cassidy survived the army attack in Bolivia in 2008. That is Shepard, who is living a quiet life breeding horses. When he hears that Etta Place has died, he thinks it's time to go home (she bore him a son that he's never seen). He withdraws all his money (telling the manager he's never been so well received in a bank before) and is set to go when he's ambushed by a Spaniard, and his horse, with all his money on it, runs off.

This Spaniard (Eduardo Noriega) has stolen money from a mining company. He promises Shepard half the money if he helps him. Against his better judgment, Shepard helps him, but once again he's hunted. If you remember those scenes from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, when Paul Newman kept saying, "Who are those guys?" you'll feel a sense of nostalgia as Shepard tries to outpace a posse.

There are also flashback scenes, with Butch as a younger man, played by the Kingslayer himself, Nicolas Coster-Waldau. One flashback introduces a Pinkerton agent, played by Stephen Rea (another of my favorite actors) who thinks he has finally caught them. He will play an important part at the end.

Blackthorn (named after the pseudonym Cassidy--which was also a pseudonym--uses) is an okay movie, but works better for those who cherish Westerns and Western history. There is a controversy about whether Cassidy and the Sundance Kid died that day, and this film doesn't state anything definitively, it just plays a what if. The film was shot entirely in Bolivia, which I don't know much about but has some spectacular scenery, including salt flats that are entirely white.

Shepard had a very eccentric and wonderful acting career. He mostly played down-home kind of guys, but he even did Shakespeare (as the Ghost in Hamlet). He always seemed to play a guy who didn't put up with bullshit, the kind of guy you'd want to drink with and have your back (he did play a few villains, though). I'll miss that. He's gone too soon.