The Ballad of Lefty Brown - Review

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

BILL Pullman delivers a suitably gritty but loveable leading man performance in this old fashioned, yet highly watchable Western from Jared Moshe.

Notable for its decision to place a luckless, somewhat incapable sidekick as its central character, The Ballad of Lefty Brown makes good use of the role reversal to empower and to shine a light on issues and character traits that often struggle to find attention in more macho movies.

Lefty is the loyal partner of rancher turned forthcoming Montana senator Edward Johnson (Peter Fonda)... someone who has ridden alongside his employer for decades and who can recount a tale or two of adventure and unspoken heroism. But while steadfastly loyal, Lefty is often looked down upon by his fellow employees and Johnson's wife (Kathy Baker), who don't see him as being up to the challenge of leading, or even temporarily looking after the ranch in Johnson's absence.

Indeed, as the film gets underway, Mrs Johnson implores her husband not to leave Lefty in charge, for fear that he does not command the respect of his men, or the mental and physical capacity to do so.

But while out in search of horse thieves, Johnson is ruthlessly killed, leaving Lefty to go it alone to avenge his friend and find the killers (led by Joe Anderson's Frank).

As Mrs Johnson is left to grieve, meanwhile, she is visited by two former members of her husband's old crew, Tom Harrah (Tommy Flanagan), a reformed alcoholic turned US Marshal, and Jimmy Bierce (Jim Caviezel), newly turned State governor. Lefty, on the other hand, takes on a kid named Jeremiah (Diego Josef), as well as the belated support of Harrah.

But events slowly conspire against Lefty to implicate him in the killing of Edward, forcing him to fight to clear his name and keep his neck from the noose - all the while maintaining his sense of decency and honouring his friend's legacy.

With so much at play, it will perhaps come as no surprise to find that Moshe's film unfolds at a fairly leisurely pace, which may be too slow for some who like their Westerns to have more immediacy and bite.

But the film's pacing is in many ways representative of the central character himself... old, traditional, rambling yet deceptively capable.

Pullman imbues Lefty with a grizzled voice, an occasional stutter, and a sideways shuffle that comes from the result of an  injury he sustained during another of his adventures - and which he recounts in typically amiable manner. But this all adds to the charm of the movie [and the character] and the reason why it remains so distinct within its own genre.

It's also a pleasure to see Pullman stretch his legs in a rare leading man movie role, given how regularly he so often steals scenes from supporting performances.

But there is notable support too, from the likes of Flanagan as Lefty's haunted colleague, Baker as Edward's resolute wife turned widow, and Josef, as the plucky kid who learns the hard way that the West doesn't always conform to the romanticism printed in the journals he so often reads from. In that sense, Moshe nods to the revisionist nature of Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven, while exploring greed and corruption through the prism of how it can strain even the oldest of friendships.

That's not to say that the Ballad of Lefty Brown is all talk and no gun fire. There are duels, which are slickly executed and reminiscent of the gritty style of, say, Kevin Costner's Open Range.

But it's the characters you come away remembering, with Lefty Brown - in particular - riding deservedly tall in the saddle, fully deserving of the spotlight that life has hitherto overlooked.