Butcher's Crossing

The film doesn’t really know what it is or who it’s for.

The film’s hints of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Moby-Dick and The Old Man and the Sea lend some much-needed weight to what would otherwise be a pedestrian story of men fighting the elements and one another.

Cage is welcomely understated in a performance that is all the more impressive for his avoiding his trademark excess.

“Butcher’s Crossing” is unfocused, distant, and flat.

“Butcher’s Crossing” is a tightly spun, well-acted, beautifully shot and unforgiving slice of Old West madness.

It’s a mostly well-crafted film with decent visual scope. The film’s greatest flaws are in Cage’s shakily written character...

Butcher’s Crossing features a solid Nic Cage performance and an okay sense of craft but loses sight of its characters and greater ideas. 



Butcher’s Crossing is nothing less than a landlocked Moby Dick, a tale of obsession and madness on a sea of grass.

When you have Hollywood’s loosest nut at your disposal and you don’t get the most from him, well, that’s a paddlin’.

It manages to hypnotise, thanks to its characters, certain visual aspects, and the performance of one Nicolas Cage, one of my favourite actors (and whose presence is invaluable in this kind of medium-sized indie film). Full review in Spanish.