Hickok (USA, 2017)

Opening amidst a Civil War battle in which the nattily dressed-in-black Hickok (Luke Hemsworth, yet another hot-bodied Hemsworth brother, this one generally found in genre films like Death of Me [2020 / trailer] and The Osiris Child [2016 / trailer]) appears to be the only survivor, this well-made but hardly inventive western promptly jumps to seven years into the post-Civil War future, one in which Hickok has obviously slid down the economic ladder. Having blown his apparently last cents on a bordello babe and a bath, he suddenly has to "leave" town and ends up, more or less purely by chance, in Abilene, Kansas (the current — as in 2025 — location of the Greyhound Hall of Fame and, of lesser interest, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum). An act of frontier humanism at a poker table leads the town mayor, George Knox (Kris Kristofferson [22 June 1936 – 28 Sept 2024] of Blade [1998] and so much more), to offer Hickok the position of town marshal, which Hickok accepts, if but for purely mercantile reasons...

 

"No one's harmless with a gun and a belly full of liquor." 
Wild Bill Hickok (Luke Hemsworth)

 

Trailer to

Hickok:

In Hickok, like most movies dealing with folk heroes, be the hero Beowulf or Robin Hood or Wild Bill Hickok (27 May 1837 – 2 Aug 1876) or Bonnie & Clyde, diverse rumored truths and more-likely truths and total fabrications are woven into the narrative tapestry in whatever way that best fits the filmmaker's desires,* so the movie can hardly claim to be even a mildly realistic biography of the famed gunman's life. But then, seeing that historical veracity is not something innate to the "known" life stories of folk heroes and legends — and especially not to those of the Wild West — factual exactitude should neither be expected nor held as a benchmark.** The real question is simply, does the narrative*** (and, in turn, the movie) work?

* For example, John Wesley Hardin (26 May 1853 – 19 Aug 1895) may have been in town while Hickok was marshal, but he never became the town's deputy. And while there was indeed a showdown between Hickok and Philio Houston "Phil" Coe, it was anything but that as presented in the movie, and it hardly involved an ex-flame. And... And... And... And... 
** While alive, Hickok was known to be a teller of tall tales and fabrications regarding his exploits. Indeed, his penchant for doing so is aptly illustrated in a small but fun character-building scene in which he distracts an injured boy, Joey (Hunter Fischer), by spinning a cliffhanger adventure from his past.
*** The film was scripted by the less than productive Michael Lanahan, whose limited resume of credits (only four films?) appears to have begun with forgotten director Steve Carver's (5 Apr 1945 – 8 Jan 2021) singular '80s T&A comedy, the minor cult fave (at least for those into '80s T&A comedies) Jocks (1986 / trailer). Carver himself was a master of exploitation, as evidenced by his trash classics The Arena (1974 / trailer), Big Bad Mama (1974 / trailer, with Dick Miller), Drum (1976 / trailer) and more, who left film and the world too early.  

It does. The tale told in Hickok might not be new and is a bit by the numbers, but it unrolls at a comfortable speed that allows for action and moments of quietude, if not even character development and occasional dashes of humor. Along the same lines, the cinematography is clear and well shot, while the entire mise en scene rarely calls overt attention to itself or screams film set.

Across the board, Hickok forgoes the filth and realism of the contemporary, revisionist westerns, not to mention the grotesqueries and idiosyncrasies of the spaghetti westerns, aiming instead for an overall cleanliness that is almost traditional, and much closer to the westerns featuring cleanly shaven and dressed but manly men that many of us grew up watching on after-school television. (To its advantage, the movie also totally forgoes posse chases, cattle drives and "Injuns", things that were very much a staple of most old-school westerns.)

 

"I'll tell you one thing — guns are good for business." 
Doc (Bruce Dern)

 

As for the direction, the productive genre filmmaker Timothy Woodward Jr.'s* handicraft also seems to echo the old-school western. In Hickok, he evidences a solid grasp of form and an eye for pleasant framing, but never dips his toe into visual innovation or playfulness or unnecessary Wow!-moments. His action scenes and shootouts might rely too much on editing, but the flow and rhythm of direction works well with story told. Of equal importance, he obviously has a hand for directing his performers, for they all deliver decent performances. 

* Timothy Woodward Jr. doesn't seem to have had any "big hits" as of yet, and a move to the A-levels is still waiting, but his productive career (since 2012) as a reliable producer of genre product reveals a regularity of "quality" that makes one think he'll be around a while. Some of his films of fun include: Gnome Alone (2015 / trailer), Seven Faces of the Ripper (2014 / trailer), Decommissioned (2016 / trailer), Gangster Land (2017 / trailer), The Final Wish (2018 / trailer), The Outsider (2019 / trailer), The Call (2020 / trailer), and Till Death Do Us Part (2023 / trailer).

Of Hickok's cast, Cameron Richardson (of Rise: Blood Hunter [2007 / trailer], Women in Trouble [2009 / trailer], Wreckage [2010 / trailer], Dead Ant [2017 / trailer] and Hotel Noir [2012 / trailer]), who plays Mattie, the fictitious woman of the tale, deserves special mention: over the course of the movie, she makes her rather one-note if mercurial character likeable and, ultimately, both believable and understandable. As the movie's central bad guy, Phil Poe, big-man country singer Trace Adkins (of Maneater [2022 / trailer] and Trailer Park of Terror [2008 / trailer]) is also noteworthy, convincingly presented an alpha personality that slowly burns to an explosion.

 

In general, actually, the casting of Hickok works well: like most Woodward Jr. feature films, it utilizes an excellent cult-worthy mixture of familiar, semi-familiar and unknown faces;* going by this film, and assuming Woodward Jr. has some say in the casting, he not only possesses a decent grasp of perfect casting by type but also knows how to get his thespians to give decent performances.

* The familiar, cult-worthy names of Hickok are, of course, the old timers Kristofferson and Bruce Dern (of The Glass House [2001] and so much more), the latter as the alcoholic Doc Rivers O'Roark. As to be expected, both Dern & Kristofferson are given headlining credit in what must have been a one-day shoot for Dern and a three-day shoot for Kristofferson. Both men are given, at different points, portent and oddly inappropriate dialogue (particularly in the case of the alcoholic doctor played by Dern) regarding how a man must become a man and face his demons and stop running from the past. Kristofferson in particular seems to be a sage of the Wild West, spouting platitudes with enough gravitas that they don't necessarily sound stupid...  

Trace Adkins top-twenty hit from 1996,

There's a Girl in Texas:

When not in rags, Hemsworth's Wild Bill is far more cosmopolitan than the real, almost dandy-looking Bill (that's him below) probably ever was. Hemsworth is definitely a lot better dressed and cleaner, and by the looks of it a lot more muscular and chiseled — you never see Bill/Hemsworth fully naked, but he does have a nice shirtless scene that reveals a body worth drooling for. As for the 100% fictional Mattie, the woman of the narrative, aside from being well-acted and emotionally layered, she too is pleasant to the eye.* Unexpectedly, for this day and age, she has a nude scene; much too short and discrete, to say the least, and with a twice-as-stacked body double, but what cis-gendered dude is going to complain about that? 

* Named #52 on the Maxim magazine Hot 100 of 2005 list, she should have placed higher.

As a movie, Hickok could perhaps best be described as factually challenged comfort food. Nicely, if somewhat stodgily directed, it never looks cheap or on-the-fly and, to the contrary, plays out as if everyone involved wanted the do the best they could. As a movie, Hickok might not offer anything new, but much like well-made comfort food it has all the right ingredients put together in the right way. Hickok makes for easy viewing, and as such is a highly pleasant diversion — and not just for western fans.