Westender

Starring:Blake Stadel, Rob Simonsen, John Rankin (II), Darlene Dadras, Rod James (II), Ron Wright, Hans Hlawaty (II), David Shelofsky, Shawn Rottmeier, Daniel Snyder (III), Christa Kepshire, Monica Graves, Keri Warr, Maren McGuire, Ann Oxenhandler, Tyler Morse, Mary Brush, Steven Huerta, Rolf Nordhausen, Ryan Honey
Director: Brock Morse
Studio: Lightyear Video
Product Type: DVD

Editorial Review:
Description
Set in a fictitious medieval world, this Odyssey of one man's personal redemption is an entertaining and thought-provoking tale rife with swordplay, humor, intrigue, and fantasy. Blake Stadel stars as a legendary knight who has mysteriously fallen from grace.

DVD Features:
Deleted Scenes
Featurette:The Creation of Westender featurette
Theatrical Trailer

Average customer rating:

A good idea
Worth a chance
Decent English knight movie not as bad as reviewed here
best viewed on fast forward
"Something interesting is going to happen at any second!"

Westender
Starring: Blake Stadel , Rob Simonsen , John Rankin (II) , Darlene Dadras , and Rod James (II)
Director: Brock Morse
Manufacturer: Lightyear Video
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

General | Drama | Genres | DVD | Video

General | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Genres | DVD | Video

( W ) | Titles | Features | DVD | Video

Blood of Beasts
Fantasy Quest
Dark Kingdom - The Dragon King
Dragon Storm
Earthsea

ASIN: B00068S42M
Release Date: 2004-12-14

Description

Set in a fictitious medieval world, this Odyssey of one man's personal redemption is an entertaining and thought-provoking tale rife with swordplay, humor, intrigue, and fantasy. Blake Stadel stars as a legendary knight who has mysteriously fallen from grace.

DVD Features:
Deleted Scenes
Featurette:The Creation of Westender featurette
Theatrical Trailer

Customer Reviews:

A good idea.......2007-02-03

The concept was great it was the movie itself. It felt like a d- listed Gladiator.

Worth a chance.......2006-09-25

This is a mediocre film, and whilst not being an epic is certainly thought provoking. Considering this movie is not made by a huge film studio it is a worthy attempt at making a film. There are some flaws to the movie as mentioned in a few other reviews. The amount of film time just concentrated on the main character walking was a waste of movie time. It certainly begs the question what's wrong with riding horses. Also you see that Asbrey the main character has some deep seated issues but the film does not really explore those. Thus it is hard to relate to this character. The film also makes reference to Asbrey losing his lifes love but again it is so vague you don't really know what happened. Really the main draw to this film is seeing this man wrestle with his own personal ghosts but sadly this is just not explored enough and you are left needing an explanation. Some scenes are slightly odd and this is because the plot is just not developed well enough. Some decent fighting scenes are in this movie as well as some reasonable acting by some unknowns. Certainly i would not watch this movie over and over again but i feel it is worth a look.

Decent English knight movie not as bad as reviewed here.......2006-09-17

Okay this is not 'Excalibur' but it's a decent movie, and not as bad as the reviews here imply. I have watched Westender twice now and enjoyed it more on the second viewing. That's a rare occurrence. About the walking, it is a "journey" movie and walking or horseback was the only option in UK knight days. Sure, for storytelling purposes, I would have thrown in a horse ride for good measure somewhere along the line. But the walking scenes in this movie are actually shorter in length than the walking scenes in the 'Good, Bad & the Ugly'. Okay, I know it's apples to oranges, but you get the point. As a video editor myself, I would have cut out about sixty seconds of the walking scenes, true. But otherwise it holds together pretty well, and is beautifully photographed. Most people can identify with the theme of life as trial, because life is a pretty g.d. dismal trial after all, if people were honest about it. Some come out with a more intact karma on the other side than others (or so I have heard ie I don't think George W. Bush would stand a chance against this guy) even if nobody gets out alive. It all depends on how you look at it. To me that is what the movie was all about, and I liked it. Maybe I read too much into it, but I liked it, so gave it 4 stars.

best viewed on fast forward.......2005-11-14

Well if you have every played a Larp or been in the SCA you are in for a shock. The costuming in our fantasy games are ten times better than the costuming here in westender. Also You tend to see that the world of westender is full of peril. But that is par for the course when your battles are faught with no armour and swords.

The acting is along the lines of Xena series one, but the script is paper thin. So it does not matter how good the acting is, their just isn't much to work with.

The photography is beaytiful, bet everything else is slow.

Rent or get it off of ebay for $5.00 other wise you'll be sorry.

"Something interesting is going to happen at any second!".......2005-09-16

Which is what I said through the entire movie...

(THIS MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)

This is not a good movie...it's pretty...but it's not good

Now it was not completely wretched, the cinematography deserves every accolade that it may receive, the beautiful landscape of Oregon is very well filmed. (I particularly liked the shots of Asbrey with the snow falling, both with the felled knight and afterwards) The score is also worth mentioning, this was a fully realized score, not a simple synthesizer created orchestra. It is a big help in creating a nice experience while watching the film.

That is unfortunately where my accolades must end. I am not sure where to start...

Perhaps this comment will frame my view on this movie "Lord of the G-Strings without the sex and wit" Now please listen to me...I am not holding up Lord of the G-Strings as a great piece of cinema (though it is funny from time to time), but you can see where I am going with this.

Characters: None were developed at all. I am sure there is an argument that Asbury was very well developed, given that it is his story, but it would be a weak argument. The biggest evidence of the non-existent development is the fact that only 2 characters are given names in the film. Asbury is one, and a guy who gets killed is the other. Yet in the cast list and end credits, almost everyone has a name, yet you have no clue as to who they are referring to...Is Glim the minstrel? Or the slaver? Which of the women's names is his wife's? (We assume it is his wife, but it is never said) Who was the gypsy? Why was she in that vision? Why should we care?

The costuming budget obviously went to Asbury and, for some reason, the foreign warrior at the end. Glim's (That is apparently the name of the minstrel/Jester) costume just looked odd. And all of the miscellaneous soldiers seemed to be wearing felt tunics with black pants they brought from home. Now I can forgive a lot of this due to the budget restrictions they were obviously under and I actually give them a lot of credit for stretching things as far as they did. Though I think giving your hero a huge scar and black eye in the first scene is kind of a mistake.

The script...well...it was just awful...it really was. The plot was very formulaic (When Asbury found the cottage we all knew that either a Beautiful woman or an old wise man would come in behind him. I called the thing about the door too, though it really came out of left field.) The dialogue was almost thrown in as an afterthought. There also seemed to be a very forced "He must lose all of his stuff" scene. (Why would he have taken both swords into the fight instead of leaving Glim as backup? not very good backup albeit...) And a swordsman would never sleep with his blade stuck in the ground as he slept...it would damage the blade, even if it was just sand. Nitpicky I know, but there needs to be attention to detail in order for any film to work. Due to the low quality of the script, the acting is a toss up. It is sometimes hard to tell if an actor is doing his best with bad dialogue, or if they are making bad dialogue worse. I would not say that any of them are good actors, though the old man was oddly quite a bright spot. Glim was especially bad, while I was sitting there I thought of at least 5 more appropriate ways to deliver almost all of his dialogue. Now this may not completely be his fault, but I will address this next. (As an aside, this actor also wrote the entire score to the film...and bravo to him for it, but he should stick with his day job...or his night job...whichever one writing music is.)

Finally is the direction, now this is where I think the movie was lacking most of all. There are simply too many shots that are held for far too long. Asbury walks...a lot...alone...not talking...at all. Or he looks into the distance for a long long time. (The sideways shot in this scene however is very nice, but would have been equally poignant at half the length) Or he runs...a long long way...it is like that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Lancelot is getting closer and closer to the castle. A little cutting down of those scenes would have opened the door for (here's a novel idea) more plot or at least better development of the backstory. SPOILER Especially why his wife was killed and what that had to do with his disenchantment with his calling as a protector. Or were the two things not related? Which came first, the huge battle where he is obviously weary, or the burning?END SPOILER I also think that the director is a little bit to blame with the poor performances of some of the actors. Surely he could have coaxed out slightly better performances. Take Asbury's many angry scenes. A little bit better editing or re-thinking of the scenes would have turned them from the little tantrums that they came across as, into genuine moments of agony and rage.
Now there are many more things to address, but this review is getting quite long, so I will end it there...

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