Dead for a Dollar: an apt title for a lifeless low-budget western

• Reviewed at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival.

It is unsurprising that Walter Hill’s Dead for a Dollar is dedicated to Budd Boetticher (1916-2001). The low-budget western director, who has in the last 15 years been rediscovered and championed with boxsets and the inevitable praise from Quentin Tarantino, is an obvious point of reference for Hill, who has himself been dismissed all too often as a journeyman director. Hill has also made some superb westerns, from The Long Riders (1980) to the pilot episode of Deadwood (2004), with Geronimo: An American Legend (1993) and Wild Bill (1995) in between. Indeed, it could well be argued that The Warriors (1979), Southern Comfort (1981), 48 Hrs. (1982) and Last Man Standing (1996) are, despite their settings, all westerns. Unfortunately, Dead for a Dollar has all the traces of the low budget, but very little of the ingenuity, that Hill’s name would suggest.

Christoph Waltz plays Max Borlund, a bounty hunter with a waistcoat, a hat and an accent. Accompanied by a Sgt. Poe (Warren Burke), Borlund is sent south of the border to rescue a rich man’s wife, Rachel (Rachel Brosnahan), who’s been abducted by a deserting Buffalo soldier named Elijah (Brandon Scott). Naturally, things are more complicated than they seem. Rachel is a willing escapee, rather than a victim, and she hates her husband (Hamish Linklater, best known for his role in Netflix’s 2021 horror miniseries Midnight Mass). A villainous Mexican landowner (Benjamin Bratt), his gang, and Joe Cribbens (Willem Dafoe) – an outlaw and old enemy of Borlund – soon enter the mix.

There’s a familiarity and self-contained smallness to the film, like an episode of Bonanza (1959-73) or The High Chaparral (1967-71); it’s easy to imagine Rick Dalton turning up to cock a gun. Hill and fellow screenwriter Matt Harris adjust their stereotypes with well-meaning nudges: the Mexican lawman is honourable; Rachel rails against the mores that would condemn her interracial love affair; and there’s not a racial slur to be heard. But Lloyd Ahern’s cinematography, like so many modern films and shows set south of the border, is drenched in a tedious digitally corrected yellow. Many scenes dawdle before ending; some simply don’t make sense, or are oddly staged, with one whip-fight playing out almost entirely in audio.

The cast, one of the film’s core strengths, is let down by a script that is unsure of itself and short on surprises. The screenplay’s shallowness finds its reflection in Waltz, who, beyond occasionally adjusting his hat, doesn’t seem to have considered giving his character any character. Brosnahan plays it straight and Dafoe unsurprisingly provides the film’s most interesting moments, but this misfire from Hill proves that a low budget doesn’t always inspire a Boetticher.