Starts with a bang...ends with a WHAT ?

Rating: 4/10 (23 August 2009)

I am wondering if any of the first 1400 reviews for this movie have actually seen the movie or are just in love with Russell Crowe and Christian Bale. I am thinking the positive reviewers both on line and in the news papers only saw the first half of the moviewhich was good. But the second half of the movie was terrible.
Caution this review contains some spoilers.but you may thank me for them.
The movie starts off very good. Bale's character is set up nicely as a father who is trying yet failing in vain to provide for his family. The setup for the first wagon chase scene is good and the shooting (both camera and bulletsha ha) are brilliant.
I am happy to see that Peter Fonda's character survives this scene because his character one of the few bright spots of the movie. He plays a tough, worn and battle tested bounty hunter / coach transporter / tough guy.
But soon after Crowe's character is captured the story goes south in a hurry. Now do not get me wrong I do not expect script and story line perfection but this movie had holes so big you could drive a stagecoach through them.
First of all no experienced tough guy would handcuff a guy with his hands in the frontduh you handcuff them in the back. This ends in the death of the most colorful character in the movie. Then after that nobody bothers to tie up the bad guy during the night timewhich ends in the death of another guy? Then the bad guy kicks one of the good guys in the headand none of the other 3 armed good guys bother to stop the bad guy? All during this time the Bad guys gang makes up 80 miles and ends up being only minutes behind themhuh does anyone remember that horses do not move that fast for that long? But the ending takes the cake, in some attempt to not end in typical western format (so many have been done that there are very few new endings) they have the bad guy help the good guy so he's not shot by the bad guys gang, because the bad guy all of a sudden develops a feel good conscious for the guy who is trying to send him to prison and be hung? What. To reduce the payoff even more neither the good guy (or the good guys son) gets to kill any of the bad guys gang which truly deserve it, no instead they are killed by the guy they are trying to help escapewhat the  kind of ending is that? Ohh I was not the only one disappointedthere were other people shouting out "ohh mans" and "what kind of ending is that" You are better off renting one of the old Sergio Leone's movies or Eastwood flicks than burning money on this movie.