Fine movie with flaws

Rating: 7/10 (25 July 2008)

A few short comments. I found TWBB to be compelling and fascinating. Many of the objections I've read here don't make a lot of sense to me. The pacing, for example, is slow to be sure, but seems calculated to take us back to an era when, in fact, everything happened much more slowly than we are used to today. I thought the pacing was used beautifully to project a time scale and to promote slowly building tension. The musical score has garnered a huge amount of negative reaction, but I enjoyed it with a few exceptions. The "THX" sound effect was overused a bit, but the other original contributions to the score were very effective, and on my rented DVD not overly loud. The "borrowed" music from Brahms, Pärt and others seemed to be very unusual choices, but in retrospect, amazingly apt. I had no problems whatsoever with Dano's acting -- having a kind of milquetoast who slowly reveals himself to be something else entirely was a major aspect of the film's progress. I guess I would have to say that TWBB is not so much a plot-driven story as a character study of two seemingly opposite but equally troubled individuals who come together, inevitably, for a final showdown. A great Western tradition given a very quirky twist. In a fine character study, you don't have to know any of the "whys" of a person's present actions. You observe, interpolate and draw your own conclusions. I would agree that there are some elements which defy logic, but they are fairly minor. Brother Henry was a necessity. He allowed us to have the only real glimpses into Daniel's deeper thoughts, and showed graphically how Daniel reacts to perceived betrayal. With such a private character as Daniel, how else could have even this small amount of personal information been revealed -- through a diary?! Many of the other objections such as the lack of significant female characters and the lack of follow-through on the title seem insignificant in light of the many assets of this fine, but perhaps not great movie.