Wow, this was a surprise for me. I almost didn't watch it because I'm stupid enough to be turned off by B&W, but I've been getting into westerns recently, so I gave it a try.. I'm glad I did. I don't want to give away too much about the plot, but I will say it never stagnates. I was pretty disappointed in the beginning because it seemed like it was going to be a drama, but the plot changed, it quickly grew in tension, and it never let up. The movie only gets better as each scene passes, and the final act is just fantastic.
This is my first Andre De Toth movie, and he wholly impressed me. From the brilliant outdoor shots to his tense one-shot camera panning, everything he did brought something to the screen. Even his use of back projection and a movie set looked great, and since they were minimally used, they only supported the realism of the rest of the movie. I don't know how De Toth shot a lot of the movie since Tarantino was complaining about how hard it was shooting the same type of movie in the same type of conditions. De Toth didn't have 2015 technology to keep him comfortable during the process, but he got it done with flying colors. For me, it makes this movie that much more impressive, especially shots like horses trudging through five feet of snow with no cutaway.
On top of everything else, the acting was superb. Everyone had a different purpose, and they all played out their character arc perfectly. Since there are so many changes that "Day of the Outlaw" goes through, in terms of plot, everyone has a chance to be in a few different types of movie in the relatively short running time of one.
2 / 2 directing & technical aspect 1 / 2 story 1 / 1 acting 1 / 1 pacing 1 / 1 dialogue 1 / 1 living up to its genre 1 / 1 originality 0 / 1 lasting ability to make you think
Review by schmenkyBlockedParent2016-06-07T21:10:04Z— updated 2017-03-10T20:00:59Z
Wow, this was a surprise for me. I almost didn't watch it because I'm stupid enough to be turned off by B&W, but I've been getting into westerns recently, so I gave it a try.. I'm glad I did. I don't want to give away too much about the plot, but I will say it never stagnates. I was pretty disappointed in the beginning because it seemed like it was going to be a drama, but the plot changed, it quickly grew in tension, and it never let up. The movie only gets better as each scene passes, and the final act is just fantastic.
This is my first Andre De Toth movie, and he wholly impressed me. From the brilliant outdoor shots to his tense one-shot camera panning, everything he did brought something to the screen. Even his use of back projection and a movie set looked great, and since they were minimally used, they only supported the realism of the rest of the movie. I don't know how De Toth shot a lot of the movie since Tarantino was complaining about how hard it was shooting the same type of movie in the same type of conditions. De Toth didn't have 2015 technology to keep him comfortable during the process, but he got it done with flying colors. For me, it makes this movie that much more impressive, especially shots like horses trudging through five feet of snow with no cutaway.
On top of everything else, the acting was superb. Everyone had a different purpose, and they all played out their character arc perfectly. Since there are so many changes that "Day of the Outlaw" goes through, in terms of plot, everyone has a chance to be in a few different types of movie in the relatively short running time of one.
2 / 2 directing & technical aspect
1 / 2 story
1 / 1 acting
1 / 1 pacing
1 / 1 dialogue
1 / 1 living up to its genre
1 / 1 originality
0 / 1 lasting ability to make you think
.5 / 0 miscellaneous +/- point
8.5 / 10