The Outlaw Johnny Black

I remember well when Michael Jai White announced this movie trough crowd funding a few years ago. I must be one of the only guys who never saw Black Dynamite, likely because its not a style i usually have a lot of interest in, but peoples always praise it so at one point ill watch it. Personally im a fan of MJW because of movies like Blood and Bone, Never Back Down and Triple Threat. After Scott Adkins he is likely the best "martial arts actor" in the direct to VOD format, even if he branch a bit more than Scott in term of style. But i digress. I didn't "backed" Outlaw Johnny Black because Westerns never been much of my things even tough i did enjoy Young Guns and a few others in the past, and i didn't expected this to contain martial arts. But the trailer wich i watch recently told me otherwise !

I realize yesterday the movie was on Prime Video, so i had no reason to not give it a shot. Overall i can say i "enjoyed" the movie but i had a fair share of issues with it and thats what im gonna talk about in this review.

First of all the runtime is way too long. The movie would had benefited to be 40 minutes shorter at the very least. There is definately scenes that could had been trimmed, some even removed. The second problem is there is surprisingly little action. Altough there is indeed some martial arts as the trailer suggest, it only happen a few times and you see the most of it in said trailer. I know you gonna tell me "but dude its a western"... And yes it is, but even the gun action was lacking and only happened very sporadically.

What "saved" the movie for me was the humor and jokes. Some of them landed pretty well, and MJW line deliveries and facial expressions at times were pretty hillarious. Supporting cast also had some good scenes and lines. But when the movie tried to get back to the "plot" i wasn't much interested. Its your basic run of the mill plot and the movie try to branch in too many directions with too many different vilains ultmately not giving enough screentime to neither.

When it comes to the Natives in the movie, i know this was done on purpose for the satyre/humor but it just came out weird on screen that they all of various races and portrait in a very spoof kind of way. Even Adam Sandler's The Ridiculous Six Natives look more serious... This is probably the comical aspect that landed the least for me. Thanksfully its not a huge part of it.

MJW also directed the movie and honestly in term of direction, cinematography, music and such, everything was competent and fine, while nothing stand out too much either. I would say for a first movie to direct, he did a fine job.

Ultimately i enjoyed enough of the movie to put it in the "liked" categories and give it a 6 out of 10. But its not one ill watch again or add to my physical collection.