SOUTH OF HEAVEN, WEST OF HELL – The DVD Review

Review by Sam Moffitt

I think everybody knows Dwight Yoakum as a hell of a good singer, an excellent song writer and one of Country music’s biggest stars. How many people know he directed a terrific western with all the elements we expect of a good western movie?

Yoakum shocked me, quite frankly, with his appearance in Sling Blade, Billy Bob Thornton’s masterpiece. From everything I’ve heard Yoakum is a very nice guy with his feet firmly on the ground and treats his fans with a great deal of respect. In Sling Blade he was all too believable as a complete son of a bitch. Where did a non actor get those kind of chops? In fact he is so good at playing an evil character it’s shocking. When Carl finally lays into him to put an end to it you want to stand up and cheer.

Yoakum put together this amazing western and plays a decent, upstanding Marshall in the Arizona territory in the early part of the 20th century. South of Heaven, West of Hell is set in 1907, apparently in order to show clips from the Great Train Robbery. In that opening scene a cowboy stands up and shoots back at the screen during the famous shot of a cowboy shooting at the camera. An obvious nod to The Grey Fox and allegedly this incident actually happened, more than once, when moving pictures were new.

Yoakum is Valentine Casey, veteran of the Spanish American war and now Marshall in a small town. His past catches up with him as it happens to many a western hero. The Marshall was raised by a family of outlaws who pay a visit to his small town on Christmas Eve, rob the bank, kill his deputy, very well played by Scott Wilson, and several other people and make good use of a Gatling gun and dynamite, new weapons in the old west.

Interestingly Val , as he is called, does not get up a posse and go after the outlaws, the movie takes up almost a year later and Val is now a cow hand. This departure from western movie tradition is never explained but Val will live to regret that he didn’t go after his inbred family members. More people, a lot more, are going to die, more crimes committed and a whole lot of ordinance expended before it’s all over.

Bridget Fonda is the required romantic interest as well as the female menaced by the Henry’s. Her character is anything but helpless and gets in a few licks of her own against the bad guys.

Yoakum pays his respects to a lot of the old westerns but breaks new ground in some ways. Few westerns for instance make reference to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre but I swear this movie does. The Henry family, which Valentine Casey was once a part of, seems to be made up entirely of men. There is only one Henry sister, called Sissy of course, who still has a major crush on Val.

The patriarch is played by none other than Luke Askew, among the happy clan Vince Vaughn (of all people!), an unrecognizable Paul Reubens (any movie that puts Pee Wee Herman in a beard, long hair and a Mexican sombrero and gives him a six gun is a winner in my book!) Michael Jeter and a whole lot more despicable hombres.

Bud Cort, also unrecognizable, plays a Government man sent to bring bad news to the Henry clan. Cort’s character is terribly mistreated by the Henry’s and everybody else and probably wished he had stayed in Washington. In fact there is a great deal of mistreatment, what happens to Michael Jeter’s character for instance shouldn’t happen to a dog, but it does, quite frequently, to dogs and cats both. Watch the movie and you’ll see what I mean.
In fact Yoakum puts in so many great character actors, including Bo Hopkins among others, the only western I can compare it to is Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. South of Heaven, West of Hell never quite reaches the heights of that masterpiece but not for lack of trying.

Interestingly, if you search on this title you will find a great deal of negative comments. What few critics bothered to review this film hated it and most bloggers have nothing but nasty comments. I’m not sure what they were looking for but I love this movie!

Yoakum references a lot of the classic Westerns, in fact he does a terrific commentary and points out the movies he wanted to refer to. But South of Heaven, West of Hell is it’s own peculiar show. There is so much that is off kilter, even bizarre it almost gets into the territory explored by Jim Jarmusch in his excellent Dead Man.

For instance when Yoakum puts the Marshall’s badge back on and goes after the Henry’s his deputy is named US Christmas and wears a dress. Val’s explanation of why this deputy wears a dress is just one bit of odd business. In another interesting twist Billy Bob Thornton plays the most well spoken and educated character in the movie. Almost everybody has a weird name and Yoakum gives every one of his cast members a moment to shine, even background characters that have no name or dialog.

There is so much unexplained it may have confused some viewers. As previously noted we have no clue why Val doesn’t go after the Henry’s after the bank robbery, or why there are no women in the Henry family. Even more strange, and I don’t think I’m giving away too much, Bud Cort’s Government man’s mission is to deliver to the Henry’s the news that Val was killed in Cuba during the war! Luke Askew’s reading of this official letter is one high point that is so good he reads it twice! We are never told how this came about and I believe that was Dwight Yoakum’s intention. We are NOT told everything and I have always appreciated movies that leave something to the imagination. The news of Val’s death brings about one of many great lines of dialog. In the final shootout Val tells Vince Vaughn’s character “I’m not sure of my own existence, only my intentions!”

There is so much to love in this movie, the characters are off beat and eccentric, the dialog twisted and most importantly the gun fights are very well staged. This is the kind of Western when people run out of ammunition they throw rocks at each other! The wide open spaces of the West are captured beautifully and the movie even finds time for a balloon ride.

Again, I’m not sure why this movie caused so many ill feelings and got very little promotion, If it saw the inside of a theater I never heard about it. I found it on VHS a while back, when video stores still rented tapes, this came out in 2000 after all. I love it and recommend it anyone who appreciates the Western genre.

Besides Yoakum’s and several other voices in the commentary there are some behind the scenes clips and a few trailers. I would love to see a making of documentary with Pee Wee Herman practicing his quick draw!