a review of

MANNVANUARY THREE, #20: I would be very interested to know the entire story behind the making of this movie, because at times it feels like director/star Michael Jai White shot it as two separate but overlapping films: One a spiritual sequel to BLACK DYNAMITE in homage to BLAZING SADDLES, loaded with laff-a-minute joke lines and sight gags, and the other a more or less straight-faced Blaxploitation Western in the mold of BOSS or BUCK & THE PREACHER. It feels like these two theoretical films were merged in the editing process to become a single entity, resulting in a movie that's both overlong and tonally inconsistent. They could have edited this down into a 100-minute spoof or an equally-long drama, depending on where they decided to cut, but as it is we're left with a 137-minute epic that's kind of a mishmash of good bits and a lot of less-inspired stuff. (Speaking of which: I have no idea how in the year 2023 anybody involved in this production thought it would be a good idea to depict Native/Indigenous people the way this movie does, or to double down on it with a white male actor jabbering inauthentic "Indian language" in drag, playing an "ugly" Native American woman. It's a mercifully brief part of the film but feels like a real blind spot for the filmmakers.)