A Million Ways to Die in the West
In this bawdy parody of a western, the feckless young hero, Albert Stark, can’t face up to a bully, and his girlfriend dumps him. The setting is ostensibly Old Stump, Arizona, in 1882, but it bears no resemblance to anywhere, and, really, Albert is a contemporary nerd, bored with the violence, pestilence, and low culture of the West. Albert sulks until a mysterious young woman, Anna Barnes, shows up in town, but it turns out she’s married to a ruthless thug, Clinch Leatherwood, whom Albert will shortly have to face to win Anna. A bizarre spirit quest, fueled by some Apache peyote, builds up his confidence and gives him a plan for how to defeat Clinch. A Million Ways is adapted from MacFarlane’s screenplay; he is also responsible for the TV show Family Guy, and he directed Ted. The movie will star Liam Neeson, Charlize Theron, and MacFarlane himself. The novelization is a hasty, coarse, unfunny piece of work, but the movie will make it circulate. --John Mort