I'm sure you are somewhat familiar with the tale of 'Gallowwalkers', even though I'm not sure, after watching it, how the tale of 'Gallowwalkers' actually ended.  Wesley Snipes was shooting this movie, got pinched by the gub-ment for failing to pay his taxes, and recently got released.  People, including myself, have been waiting to see this movie for years.  But what I mean by not knowing how this ends… did Wesley get released and finally make it back to Namibia to finish shooting, or did the producers wait until he was released, realized that Wesley had no desire to wrap up this nonsense and just released it anyway?  I ask this because the movie I ended up seeing was big, glossy, well shot barrel of 'what the f@#k'.

According to the synopsis "A cursed gunman whose victims come back from the dead recruits a young warrior to help in the fight against a gang of zombies".  Yeah… I don't think that was the movie I saw.  A more accurate synopsis would probably be along the lines of 'Snipes is a broken hearted gunman who hunts the dead and kidnaps a poor, unsuspecting kid and forces this kid to help him do this thing against his will'.  Or maybe 'An albino zombie and his crew of miscreants have a plan to bridge the portal between the living and the dead and only a broken hearted gunman and some other people in the movie can stop them' And even those are just vaguely accurate as there is all kinds of craziness going on in this movie that will probably make more sense depending on the level of inebriation you are in, when gazing upon this movie.  I was stone cold sober so I was confused as hell.

Anyway, Snipes is Aman and Aman hunts the dead.  For some reason, which will not be explained, there are certain people who die and come back to life.  The synopsis says that's because Aman is cursed and the people he kills comes back to life, but that's not necessarily true, at least I don't think it is.  Regardless, Aman used to be a simple man, living with his adoptive mother (Jenny Gago) and his adoptive sister Sueno (Alyssa Pridham), until he started having sexual relations with his adoptive sister which kinds of not makes her his sister anymore.  Then one day some evil gunmen come by the house while Aman was doing something or another and rape Sueno.  They don't kill her though.  She dies later on giving birth to some bastard kid. 

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Anyway, Aman is all broken hearted and stuff, finds these evil people and kills them.  Unfortunately they come back to life, led by the scurrilous Kansa (Kevin Howarth), who has no skin right now.  Fortunately for him, he stumbles upon a cult of Christian Albinos and takes one of their skins.  Then kills the rest of  the Albinos.  I should mention that actor Patrick Bergin was at the Christian Albino camp doing something or another, but I can't remember what.  Also at the Christian Albino camp are the young warrior that the synopsis speaks of, Fabulos is what they call him (Riley Smith), and a random hooker named Angel (Tanit Phoenix).  So Aman frees the kid from Albino Camp, the hooker stays with the evil Kansa who needs her for something or another.  Anyway… you know… let's go ahead and call it.  I can't really do this anymore.

Giving credit where credit is due, director Andrew Goth's 'Gallowwalkers' is one fine looking movie.  It has an authentic old west feel about it, there lots of beautiful shots of sweeping sand swept vistas featuring horses galloping across the plains, and the production values and costuming and all that other peripheral stuff that is necessary for a film watcher to suspend belief, and get wrapped up into a story taking place during a certain time period… it's all there.  This movie looks like brand new money.

But what good is a great looking movie when, at least from where I was sitting, it's almost completely incomprehensible?  I think I have a basic understanding of what was going in 'Gallowalkers', that being that Aman has to kill the bad guy at the end, and like a true western, it's a quick draw showdown, but it's everything in between which is completely befuddling.  Even the Synopsis Guy didn't know what to say.

The thing is, if you take apart a lot of the items in 'Gallowwalkers' separately, it's not so bad.  Take, like, the albino leader and his bizarre apocalypse horsemen.  I could ask why one has lizard tails on his head and another is the porcupined version of The Juggernaut, but they looked cool, especially being led by an albino quick draw artist.  How they integrate into the story as a whole?  Who knows?  Or take the case of Tanit Phoenix walking around this entire movie in a tight bustier.  While that's slightly awesome, we can't rightly say why she was in the movie in the first place.  I think the Albino needed her skin for something, but there seemed to be plenty of skin out there so I don't know what was so special about hers.  The movie kept piling on plot element after plot element and while it would be easy to blame Wesley Snipes getting pinched for how erratic and scattershot this movie is, I really don't think his situation is completely to blame.  I mean I've seen Wesley in worst movies that he made while completely free, so I'm not buying it.

At least it's over now.  We've seen 'Gallowwalkers' after waiting for what had to be a virtual eternity.  I would say I was disappointed, but I'd have to figure out exactly what disappointed me, and I'm not willing to dedicate any more time than I already have.

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