Godless, The Most Brutal Western I Have Ever Seen: Netflix

I watched the first episode I just find it disturbing way to much violence going on.
Yeah - if the first episode disturbed you, skip the rest. The finale is pretty brutal. I enjoyed it a lot, but I'd watch Jeff Daniels take a walk in the park. Ever since I saw him in Gettysburg, I'll watch anything he's in. At least anything without Jim Carrey in it...
 
I know some folks that claim this is a brutal show and hard to watch, but are more than OK with Game Of Thrones. Go figure..................

I started watching it and it is much tamer than GoT. So far enjoying it, from the early descriptions I expected much worse not Deadwood.
 
About 2/3 through it, a very good oater and I recall Lonesome Dove as bloodier. Interesting story and well written characters, Jeff Daniels especially. He plays a great bad guy, first saw that side in Looper. I'll also give credit to one of the most surprising main character departures since To Live and Die in LA. Did not see that one coming, wow!
 
I watched the first episode Friday and finished just now. Yep, extremely violent. I kept having to tell myself it's just a TV show, and like the Marvel Comics series, they have to make the bad guy the BAD guy. Only 7 episodes, and nothing ever gets solved until the end. So it's like one long movie. I enjoyed it very much. The scenery alone was incredible, acting very good, all the characters absolutely believable.
I'm typically not a TV guy but I've watched a few of the Netflix shows and they have been very entertaining. Let's see...Stranger Things, Punisher, and now Godless. More US TV shows in the last month than the last 5 years. If it stays cold I'll be watching more. Daredevil is on que.
 
Finished it up last night, very enjoyable. However I was reminded of an old movie critic's review comment on the movie The Island -

...with an ending that would startle Sam Peckinpah...

Heh, that shootout in Godless was something, full on Wild Bunch.
 
Winchester lever guns everywhere. What's not to like?

Regarding the firearms used, whomever was in charge of the armory ran the gamut. Nothing shown was much later than ~1880, that one being a Merwyn-Hulbert revolver seen in the last shootout. Plus the wide variety of other revolvers, an 1849 Baby Dragoon wielded by young Roy, the 1872 Colt Open Top he was given after he shot the rancher, the shopkeeper's 1875 Remington, and the Pinkerton's nickeled Schofield. Plus the slew of lever guns, the peak being the 1876 .50-95 Sharps chambered one. All geek stuff I know but nice to see they paid attention and not give everyone the usual 1873 Colt & 1892 Winchester.
 
The town in the movie, for some yet unexplained reason, only has women living there. There is one brief scene where prospective husbands have arrived on stage to interview for possible marriage. One of the ladies looks between buildings and on the other side in the distance, you see a totally naked woman going fishing. The scene is so out of context that you wonder what the director was thinking.
Did you actually watch the series? It explains why there are no men (I'm not going to explain for spoiler reasons), and the guys on the stage are not there to marry them, they are potential investors to help them re-open the mine.

I thought the end gunfight scene was very creative. I've never seen anything like that before.
 
The first episode opens with a sheriff's posse riding into a town, dead rotting bodies everywhere, Next at night a lady confronts a stranger who doesn't "declare himself" so she shoots him out of the saddle. An "badman" and his owl hoot henchmen visit a Doctor in the middle of the night. The "badman" tells the doctor he has been shot. Next you see the Doc looking at the wound in his arm and you can see through the bullet hole out the other side and the Doc explains that he has to amputate the Badman tells him to go ahead. The scene shifts outside. A pair of gunman are talking while this is going on you hear the Badman screaming in agony as the Doc cuts off his arm. That is just how is starts out. Is there such a thing as a Gothic Western if there is this is one. It reminds me of Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter (1973) only much, much darker and fantastically more brutal. As I watch this western I am thinking to myself zombie gunslinger cowboys would not be out of place on this one.

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You should watch Bone Tomahawk. Wow, that's a dark one.
 
I haven't seen this one but from what I've read saying it is too violent... stay away from Walking Dead.
 
As far as violence goes it does have it's moments. I'm surprised Netflix produces such a well written, acted and produced series. Love the beginnings of each episode explaining a little bit more of the "back story".
 
High production values. Well-written and acted. OTT sex and violence. Anyone recognize this formula?

To be fair, sex not prominent in the one episode I've watched. One rape, and no nudity even.
If Quinton Tarantino made a TV show...
 
Just watched the final episode and all I can say is "Wow, what a ride".
I understand Netflix is the money behind this but the writing and production quality is to be noted and praised .....unsure who to credit ....Cheers
 
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Just watched the final episode and all I can say is "Wow, what a ride".
I understand Netflix is the money behind this but the writing and production quality is to be noted and praised .....unsure who to credit ....Cheers

Agreed, very well done. Violent, absolutely. Violent to be violent and shocking? Not at all, everything was in context of the story arc and well done. I absolutely would not ever under any circumstances sit through Bone Tomahawk again and really wish I'd quit before the last 30 minutes. Godless however I will watch again down the road.
 
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