SVS: “Blackthorn”

Given that I was out of town at the start of this week, today sort of snuck up on me. And that means I’m not quite as prepared for a Streaming Video Recommendation (SVS) as I’d like. So I’m going to just toss a Western out there and call it good. Because Westerns are always good.

But in the interest of full disclosure, I’m not just mailing it in today. I’m super-mailing it in. ’cause I’m not even going to write something new about this one. I’m just going to post an article I wrote about a few years back.

Behold, Blackthorn, on NETFLIX INSTANT and AMAZON PRIME INSTANT.

In Bolivia, Butch Cassidy (now calling himself James Blackthorn) pines for one last sight of home, an adventure that aligns him with a young robber and makes the duo a target for gangs and lawmen alike.

Director Mateo Gil’s trying to borrow emotions and backstory, so there are times when it feels a bit derivative. And it’s certainly nowhere near as iconic in the minds of many as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (a film that can also be found on NETFLIX INSTANT and AMAZON PRIME INSTANT, interestingly, so pipe down with the “Mail It In” talk.)

Shepherd is really great, though (as ever), and I’ve always been kind of lukewarm when it comes to the whole BCatSK phenomenon. I very much enjoy both Redford and Newman, but the story’s a bit oddly-paced, and the style always feels dated to me. Perhaps I came to it too late.

Whatever the reason, something about Blackthorn hit me harder when I watched it a few years back than Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid had ever done. I think it has something with the “Getting To the End of the Road of Life” feel the film has. It’s pretty serious and violent stuff, as opposed to the (frankly, odd) mixture of flippant and/or harmless humor and deathly serious stakes in BCatSK. (I don’t know why I’m always drawn to these “Growing Old” stories. Should I be worried?)

Here:

The things that make us happy are rarely of our own achieving; for many of us, the lives we now live are radically different than the ones we envisioned for ourselves in our late teens. For me, a middle-aged family man surrounded by as boisterous (and rewarding) a pack of boys as one could imagine, the “dreams” of my youth are a distant memory. Yet I find myself happy in deeper and more meaningful ways that I could ever have imagined. Rather than achieving happiness through the dint of my own efforts, I have had it thrust upon me by the only One who knows what I truly need.

Despite the insistent clamoring of Modernity, happiness is not something to be grasped at; paradoxically, the more we pursue it, the less of it we actually have. A failure to recognize our own powerlessness will leave many more sorrowful than they were when they first began this pursuit, for we humans will never succeed in “capturing” the peace and contentment we so ardently desire. We must embrace it as it comes to us, recognizing that its presence is not through any actions of our own, but through a proper ordering of our wills and desires to that which we have received.

True happiness is not won; it is given.

Attribution(s): Posters and stills are the property of Magnolia Pictures and other respective production studios and distributors.