At 80 years old, Walter Hill shows no signs of slowing down. The veteran director of influential action thrillers like “The Warriors,” “48 Hrs.,” and “Streets of Fire” has reinvented himself in recent years as a reliable gun-for-hire on prestige TV Westerns (“Deadwood,” “Broken Trail”) and crime movies like “Bullet to the Head” and “The Assignment” that fall somewhere between VOD schlock and ‘70s grindhouse revivalism.
Now, his next effort, “Dead for a Dollar,” is nearly upon us, and it looks like one heck of a crowd-pleaser. The film follows a familiar Western formula: Christoph Waltz stars as a bounty hunter enlisted to ensure the safe return of a wealthy man’s kidnapped daughter. Along the way, he encounters an old enemy, played by Willem Dafoe.
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Here’s the film’s official synopsis:
“In 1897, in New Mexico Territory, Chihuahua, bounty hunter Max Borlund is hired to find Rachel Price, the politically progressive wife of businessman Nathan Price, who is allegedly being held for ransom in Mexico by Elijah Jones, an African American army deserter. During his search, Max discovers that Rachel willingly fled from an abusive husband to live with Elijah. He is also forced to confront his sworn enemy Joe Cribbens, a professional gambler and outlaw who he had sent to prison years before.”
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Alongside Waltz and Dafoe, the cast of ‘Dollar’ includes Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), Benjamin Bratt (“Miss Congeniality”), and Brandon Scott (“Dead to Me”). Matt Harris pens the script, first known as “Moon of Popping Trees,” which won him a Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting in 2002. Harris also wrote last year’s critically reviled “The Starling,” though his original script did crack the 2005 Black List of Hollywood’s most popular unproduced screenplays.
“Dead for a Dollar” has its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on September 6. The film then hits theaters on September 30. Watch the trailer for the film below.
