Director – Henry Saine, Screenplay – Jason Dodson, Colin Ebeling & Henry Saine, Story – Jason Dodson, Based on the Graphic Novel by Jason Dodson & Henry Saine, Producers – Colin Ebeling, Jason Netter & Henry Saine, Photography – David Conley, Music – Greg Edmonson, Visual Effects – Hot and Sour Animation and Effects (Supervisor – Laurel Klick), Production Design – Michael Gallenberg. Production Company – Kickstart Productions/Just Chorizo Productions.
Cast
Matthew Marsden (Francis ‘Drifter’ Gorman), Christian Pitre (Mary Death/Numi), Barak Hardley (Jack Le Mans), Abraham Benrubi (Jimbo Stone), Kristanna Loken (Catherine), Eve Jeffers (Mocha Sujata), Beverly D’Angelo (Lucille), Kevin McNally (Daft Willy), Gary Busey (Van Sterling), Jeff Meacham (Greg Gunney)
Plot
The world has been destroyed in the corporate wars. In the aftermath, the Council of Nine has attempted to re-establish democracy. The Council has promised justice by licensing Bounty Killers to hunt and kill the corporate executives responsible for the collapse. The two top Bounty Killers are Drifter and his former apprentice Mary Death, who maintain a friendly rivalry. Drifter learns that his friend Henry is in trouble and sets out to find him, accompanied by Jack Le Mans who begs to become Drifter’s gun caddy. At the same time, Mary picks up a new Wanted poster that has been released and discovers that Drifter is in fact former corporate head Francis Gorman. Both arrive in search of Henry to find that a trap has been set to kill Drifter. Drifter realises the only way he can clear his name is by going directly to the Council but this means crossing the Badlands inhabited by the crazed Gypsies at the same time as other Bounty Killers come hunting them.
Bounty Killer was the second film from director Henry Saine who previously made the occasionally amusing The Last Lovecraft: Relic of Cthulhu (2009). Prior to that, Saine had worked in music video and as a storyboard artist. Bounty Killer has a complicated genesis. The film’s credits say it is based on a graphic novel. Saine and Jason Dodson released a single issue of Bounty Killer, which has a January 1, 2012 release date. On the other hand, prior to that, Saine and Dodson had made a short film Bounty Killer (2011), which contains most of the same principal cast as the full-length film here with the exception of the recasting of the leading man. It leaves you with a chicken and egg situation where you are not sure what came first – the film or comic-book.
Henry Saine directs in a wilfully absurd comic-book style. This is a film where it seems perfectly natural for Christian Pitre to be wading into combat or conducting car mechanics wearing platform heels, mini-skirt and stockings with suspenders. It often feels like the surreal comic-book tone that Robert Rodriguez aims for in some of action films – Machete Kills (2013) being a perfect example. Although this is somewhat undermined by the fact that Bounty Killer is not operating on an A-budget and is often cutting corners, meaning that it only occasionally hits the kind of visual comic-book delirium it aims for.
Rival bounty killers/lovers Drifter (Matthew Marsden) and Mary Death (Christian Pitre)
One scene where the film hits this note perfectly is a sequence where Matthew Marsden and Barak Hardley flee the gypsy camp using a wagon made up of an old Airstream caravan harnessed to two motorcycles just like it was a horse-drawn stagecoach, while being pursued by the Gypsies in custom cars and motorcycles. It is a sequence that seems modelled on the tanker chase climax in Mad Max 2 (1981), albeit with the addition of more cartoon gore. Saine mounts quite an impressively large-scale action sequence out of it. Similarly, the climactic shootout is adeptly staged with Matthew Marsden and Christian Pitre taking on hordes of bankers in a dance of sorts where they move from one shooting and oncoming attack to the next, in between which Barak Hadley nimbly slides in to refill the ammo and they pirouette in the midst of the dance for a kiss.
Bounty Killer was made around the time of the Occupy Movement and not long after the Subprime Mortgage Crisis so it is no particular surprise that the bad guys being hunted in the film are bankers. There were other films around the same time dealing with the same theme, notedly Uwe Boll’s Attack on Wall Street (2012). Here the bankers get to toss off lines like “The apocalypse was the ultimate bankruptcy.”
