White and Black

We were pretty excited about Outlaw Johnny Black (2023) - a comedy/Western starring and directed by Michael Jai White. We loved Black Dynamite, so obviously we were going to see this. We weren't exactly disappointed...

White is Johnny Black, a wanted man. It starts with him waiting outside a bank. He has info that the bank will be robbed by his nemesis, the man who shot his pa, Chris Browning. But before they show up, he is arrested and thrown in jail, and has to watch the bad guys get away. 

When he was just a boy, his father was a sharpshooter showman by day, revival preacher by night. When one of his tricks impresses Browning's gang, Browning gets jealous and tries to duel him. Then he just guns White's father down. So White vows revenge, and, now a man, has missed again.

On his way to the next town, he finds a preacher, aiming to marry the woman he has been corresponding with. White proposes that he take the preacher's place, in exchange for not shooting him. When he gets to town, White recites a few passages from the preacher's letters, and is accepted as the real thing - by the demure and beautiful Erica Ash as well as the townspeople. Then he meets her sister, the wild and beautiful Anika Noni Rose.

Meanwhile, the preacher has run off and gotten captured by Indians, and married off to the ugly (possibly M2F Two Spirit) daughter of the chief.

Now the first part of the movie plays like a regular Western comedy - say, Support Your Local Sheriff or Cat Ballou, or even Buck and the Preacher. The comedy is more or less grounded, and there are even long stretches of just plain Western. But there are also wackier sections, like the "marry the ugly Indian", which has a sort of Benny Hill vibe. Then there's the surreal/meta stuff, like the Indian chief shedding a single tear. Like Iron Eye Cody, this chief is not played by a Native American, either. There's a guy who looks like Uncle Ben, and a few other more out-there touches.

There's also a lot of quotes from great Westerns, like a slap/quick draw, from Trinity is Still My Name. And the chief's daughter punches a horse, like in Blazing Saddles.

Since the movie is over two hours long, I think the problem was that White just loved all this stuff and didn't want to leave a thing out. He seemed to be having a great time just riding along on a horse, and probably loved being in a Western. He got a lot of talent to join him, including Randy Couture and Barry Bostwick. 

So we weren't as blown away as we were by Black Dynamite, but we had fun - just maybe not as much as the cast did. I think I would have preferred more Blazing Saddles stuff, or failing that, less of it. He could have made a sincere, silly but grounded movie. It would have had a more reasonable runtime, too. But he might never get another chance, so why not put it all in?