Not just another Western.
Here's a movie with something like a 9% positivity rating somewhere, maybe tomatoes. That means it's supposed to be really bad. But it's not really bad. In fact, I could give it a B-, possibly. So, why was it rated so lowly? It could have PC politics. Maybe there was a big to-do over the black guy looking like a stereotype from long ago. But, blacks, and whites, where actually different 200 years ago. And, this guy wasn't too different to the guy in, "Designing Women." And the character was DUMB - so the actor had to play dumb, over-exaggerate, and put humour into actions, not words. We don't hear any complaints about Chico's dumb antics in the Marx Brothers. And Chico was supposed to represent Irish people, in a general way. (Harpo Anglo, Zeppo Italian).
It is (also) possible that this hypothesized hubbub might have been part of some kind of Hollywood revolt against Paul Hogan, for some unknown reason. Not saying I know of anything - but that's the way Hollywood gets. Hogan might have supported gun rights or something un-PC. Maybe.
I loved Hogan in 2 Crocodile Dundee movies, and was glad to see him in something different, yet similar. Maybe the public had a hard time accepting or understanding a transition to that??
From what I have seen, Hogan usually portrays characters who pretend to be macho, and they partly do so by playing off of supporting actors, who play a sort-of admiring or supplicating role. So, in the case of this movie, that might make some people feel like the black guy is being too slave-like. (Which blacks were, in those days). But I saw him more as being self-effacing and comic in the same way Hogan's character was self-effacing and comic, although many people could not see Hogan being that way, so much. Couldn't see the silliness of his vanity and such, as much as they could in the Dundee movies. And maybe some people were actually looking for more Dundee, and not being satisfied with this character. Idk.
This was not a bad take on Westerns. Good music. Good scenery. Weirdness. Little modern pokes at the past. Cunning tricks. Something new here and there - like a chase through little caves, or a shooting of bank robbers before they rob the bank. It was happy-go-lucky and yet serious. Maybe that didn't square with American ideas of what a Western should be, in 1994. Not supposed to be funnier, this movie was better than, e.g., "A Million Ways To Die..." And better than a lot of other normal Westerns. It was structured pretty well. And so on. So, I don;t know why it was rated so terribly. Lightning Jack should have been remembered to have been a cultural outsider, just like the black guy. Whatever.
WATCH "LIGHTNING JACK" (about 1:45:00min)
It is (also) possible that this hypothesized hubbub might have been part of some kind of Hollywood revolt against Paul Hogan, for some unknown reason. Not saying I know of anything - but that's the way Hollywood gets. Hogan might have supported gun rights or something un-PC. Maybe.
I loved Hogan in 2 Crocodile Dundee movies, and was glad to see him in something different, yet similar. Maybe the public had a hard time accepting or understanding a transition to that??
From what I have seen, Hogan usually portrays characters who pretend to be macho, and they partly do so by playing off of supporting actors, who play a sort-of admiring or supplicating role. So, in the case of this movie, that might make some people feel like the black guy is being too slave-like. (Which blacks were, in those days). But I saw him more as being self-effacing and comic in the same way Hogan's character was self-effacing and comic, although many people could not see Hogan being that way, so much. Couldn't see the silliness of his vanity and such, as much as they could in the Dundee movies. And maybe some people were actually looking for more Dundee, and not being satisfied with this character. Idk.
This was not a bad take on Westerns. Good music. Good scenery. Weirdness. Little modern pokes at the past. Cunning tricks. Something new here and there - like a chase through little caves, or a shooting of bank robbers before they rob the bank. It was happy-go-lucky and yet serious. Maybe that didn't square with American ideas of what a Western should be, in 1994. Not supposed to be funnier, this movie was better than, e.g., "A Million Ways To Die..." And better than a lot of other normal Westerns. It was structured pretty well. And so on. So, I don;t know why it was rated so terribly. Lightning Jack should have been remembered to have been a cultural outsider, just like the black guy. Whatever.
WATCH "LIGHTNING JACK" (about 1:45:00min)