A Cowboy Fuss

CAST: Daniel Craig,Harrison Ford,Olivia Wilde,Sam Rockwell,Paul Dano

Rating: **1/2

There are cowboys,and there are aliens,and then there are cowboys and aliens. And still,all it comes down to is gold. Based on a graphic novel,this is one of those films which makes considerable effort to set up the atmosphere,the details,the actors,the setting — besides experimenting with what is potentially a great idea — and then just goes plain lazy with what to do with them.

After an absorbing start with a nicely buffeted Daniel Craig — rarely has a waistcoat and hat fit better on a person — with little recollection of how he has come to be in the wild deserts of Arizona,the film keeps adding characters and quite adeptly building on them till the faceless,shapeless and,of course,heartless aliens come poaching on their flying machines.

In a quick swoop down on what look like metal dragonflies,they pluck humans at random off the ground,stringing them and carrying them swinging into the air. That way go at least two great actors just when we were hoping to see more of them: Keith Carradine,the Sheriff; and Paul Dano,who plays the spoilt son of the man who runs things around this cowboy town called Absolution,Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford).

Craig,the man with no memory,is soon revealed to be a wanted bandit,Jack Lonergan,with the curious iron bracelet around his wrist that won’t come off,establishing his “links” with the aliens. His son gone,Dolarhyde mounts a hunt for all those abducted by the aliens and since Jack’s bracelet is the only thing that is able to destroy them,he comes along.

Watching from the shadows,literally,is Ellen (Wilde),a beautiful thing in a flowing gown and flowing hair,plus a holster with a gun,who throws looks and whispers things into Jack’s ears suggesting that she knows something that others don’t.

The flashbacks these trigger in Jack,helped along by a “wonder potion” that the Indians conjure up for the purpose,help him recollect how he came to have that bracelet. And that the woman that he remembers in warm light and sepia tones has a special meaning — not that this particular deduction required any magic.

In portraying the two contrasting worlds it brings together — 1873 cowboys and sci-fi spaceships — the film sometimes gets it spot on. Strung along by one alien for a short ride where he almost falls to death,Jack shakes his head admiringly at Ellen at one point. “We were flying!” he says.

And still all it comes down to is gold. The aliens intent on bombing planet earth and capturing its earthlings are only after the yellow metal. Dolarhyde asks the question we are all dying to ask: “To do what? Buy things?” And gets the answer you wish the film never answered: “It has the same value for them.”

When cowboys with honour,heart and horses take on aliens with muscles upon gooey muscles,you know the battle can end only one way. In Iron Man and Iron Man 2,director Jon Favreau drew the best out of metal with a Robert Downey Jr. Here,the much-talked-about pairing of Ford and Craig weighs in on the same side of the clash. And that doesn’t make it much of a fight.