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The year's 1892, and the Dalton Gang has already garnered infamy in the Midwest, so much so that Marshal Heck Thomas (Mark D. Anderson) has gotten on their tail and is now relentlessly trailing them. Meanwhile, Bob Dalton (Tristan Campbell), leader of the gang, plans a heist bigger than anything Jesse James has ever done, to rob two banks at the same time. For this coup, Bob has chosen the town Coffeyville, Kansas, as he figures the town is easy prey due to their no-gun policy. Bob's brother Emmett (Joshua R. Outzen) is wildly opposed to this plan, mainly because he doesn't fully trust Bob's mental health anymore, but the others figure it's a good plan as it should give them enough loot to leave this part of the country for good, shaking the law in the process. Unfortunately, the plan hits its first hitch before the gang can even enter the banks, as the hitching post they depended on for their horses has long been demounted, and thus they have to hitch their horses in a nearby alley. Then when entering the banks, they're recognized by a local (Delno Ebie) who alarms the authorities, and while the gang - Bob, Emmett, their brother Grat (Jake Washburn), plus accomplices Broadwell (Sean Gestl) and Powers (Ryan A. Johnson) - is still inside both banks, a spontaneous posse, made up from many locals who didn't take the no-gun policy too literally, forms outside. And the heist's don't go exactly as planned either, be it because the loot's too heavy or one bank's vault can't be opened at a certain time. So ultimately, things just have to end in a big gunfight that hardly anyone of the Dalton gang survives ...

A pretty nice piece of western cinema, and one that works so well because it doesn't just follow a genre formula (without betraying the genre as a whole though) but dares to put its focus less on western-typical machoisms but on the fallability of its characters, the unpredictability of situations. And while the extended shoot-out that makes the finale of the film (though there's a long post-finale sequence) sure is action-filled and quite bloody, the film focuses not so much on spectacle but on characters - especially Bob and Emmett - and their interactions. And the result is just a pretty cool movie, and one that you might even like if westerns as such aren't your thing.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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