I recently watched an interesting but painful movie, made by a bunch of French filmmakers, giving their perspective on the American Wild West films of the 1930s through 1950s. Actually, it is difficult to even say THAT, since this picture is based on a French series of graphic novels.

Released in the U.S. as "Renegade," this picture follows the plights of New Orleans cajun Mike Blueberry, played by Vincent Cassel (Ocean's 12), a town marshall who befriended the native americans of the land.

In his youth, he tangled with a roughian named Wallace Blount, played by Michael Madsen (Wyatt Earp), and some young whore Blueberry had feelings for was shot dead in the process. Blueberry jumps out a window as the whore's room goes up in flames with Blount in it.

Later, there are a handful of characters searching for this manuscript, which is supposed to lead them to a mountain. Inside the mountain is an unfathomable power, of which is NEVER fully described. Everyone wants this power, but we are never told what having the power means for anyone.

In the end--yes, I'm giving away the ending, Blueberry and Blount BOTH obtain the power, but it turns out to be a very bad peyote trip. I'm not kidding. That's all it was; very strange.

The story also includes some flirting between Blueberry and Maria, played by Juliette Lewis (Kalifornia). She gets fully naked for this thing by the way. However, her part is completely useless. Come to think of it, with the exception of Cassel, Madsen and maybe Eddie Izzard (All the Queen's Men) as Prosit, pretty much every character in this movie was useless. In fact, the movie itself was pretty flippin' useless.

The only thing exciting about this movie is watching the contemporary French cinema camera style used to shoot a picture set in the American Wild West. However, we are bombbarded by numerous, numerous, numerous western genre cliches of which these French filmmakers, for some reason, thought the picture could NOT go without.

Holland director Jan Kounen, who hasn't had another picture land in American movie houses, called shots for this film. The screenplay, based on French comic books created by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud, has six writers' names attached to it, and I guarantee this movie feels THAT misguided for it.

Most of the last act is littered with a melting pot of French made visual effects, as Blueberry has his "secret experience," encountering this peyote-induced supreme power everyone wanted to get their hands on.

If you happen to have seen Kubrick's third act for "2001: A Space Odyssey," that will give you some clue as to the last 15 minutes of "Renegade (Blueberry)." In "2001: A Space Odyssey," the viewer is subjected to this 15-minute plus barrage of visual art, as the character Dave passes through the black monolith. "Renegade" has pretty much the same 15 minutes of torture as "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Even visually, being the film's most interesting quality, the final act of "Renegade (Blueberry)" is its worst.

I honestly cannot imagine who, besides fans of the original graphic novels from France, would seriously get into this picture. For me, it's a total waste of time. However, you could keep a copy around in case you run out of toilet paper.

Benn - Where's the Humanity?