A Million Ways to Die in the West; or A million ways to tell the same joke.
Full disclosure: I am not a Family Guy fan. Or an American Dad fan. Or a fan of anything created by Seth McFarlane. In fact, I largely blame him for the awful trend of scripted non-sequitur television comedy where having no taste is an asset and no joke or situation has purpose beyond boasting of the writers’ knowledge. Certainly he is a smart guy, because he has figured out how to hoodwink whole swaths of the population with his lowest-common-denominator humor. I consider it a supreme laziness of vision and imagination to write the way he does, yet I suppose it takes some measure of talent to be a comedian who can convince people that having no unique perspective and writing jokes that never land, are repeated ad nauseum, and/or stolen from other writers, are the hallmarks of comic genius. The more I see of McFarlane’s work, the more I think South Park was somehow accurate with their depiction of his style as the product of manatees fishing out idea balls rather than a cogent, perceptive creative process.
But alas we do live in a world that validates his narcissistic, aimless approach, and this has led him to make another feature film enabling him to show off how much he knows about something (this time it’s Frontier myths and American identity), and still manage to have nothing to say. A Million Ways to Die in the West is a raggedy remix of Blazing Saddles and City Slickers with a loaded cast of Hollywood elite, all pleased as punch to have a spot in a McFarlane jag.
The plot of A Million Ways to Die in the West concerns the plight of a lowly sheep farmer/quivering coward named Albert (played by McFarlane), who is too smart for his own good and has grown disenchanted with the values and demands of Frontier life in the town of “Old Stump.” Unable to convince his girlfriend Louise (Amanda Seyfreid) to marry him, he has lost all hope of finding the courage to go for something more in a world where living past 30 and winning a duel are considered accomplishments of note. Luckily, a band of outlaws led by Liam Neeson (the one interesting casting choice) is headed through the region to give him an opportunity to prove his mettle. And even more luckily, the woman claimed as reluctant wife by this leader, Anna (Charlize Theron), is sent to Old Stump to lie low as he runs off to rob a stagecoach, or something to that effect. I’d tell you more, but you can already see where this is going. Unsurprisingly, everything works out for everyone we like, and those we don’t like have their asses handed to them (or have their asses explode with diarrhea, literally).
The plot is clearly a non-entity here. It’s a flimsy framework upon which McFarlane hangs a million jokes with the same punchline- the morals and culture of the Old West are fucked up because this culture lacks the technological or social advances we have now. The majority of the film is laden with anachronism and hindsight that flatters the audience’s intelligence but offers no fresh take on played-out material (like the endless fart jokes peppering the script) while never delving beneath the surface of common knowledge. There are some lovely shots of the landscape, but nothing is made of that landscape to augment the story of a small man who wants more out of life. Nobody talks like a person living in this time and place, but like actors who read a for Dummies book on the Old West before rehearsing. With all of the talented performers gathered together for this project, McFarlane gives none of them material worthy of their skills.
The entire film feels like a live-action episode of one of his TV shows, with fewer nonsensical asides (though those are still present, e.g. Christopher Plummer’s cameo). Every line McFarlane speaks sounds like he wrote it for Brian on Family Guy, a character whose ability to see what’s wrong with the world makes him an outcast among those too stupid to see what he sees. This does nothing to alleviate the “been there done that” quality that permeates the whole experience of watching this film. There is little attention to detail in costume and set design that one couldn’t find in Frontierland at Disney’s amusement parks and the characters have no personality beyond that of the actors. This comes in handy whenever Sarah Silverman is around (which is not nearly enough, as usual). The rest of the time, you feel like the people in Old Stump are just visitors at “Westworld” while pointless cameos pop up to distract us from the fact that there is no story to speak of. Ryan Reynolds shows up for two seconds of screen time just to take a bullet and die instantly. Jamie Fox shows up as Django to kill the purveyor of the shooting gallery at the town fair, where instead of ducks, one can fire at runaway slaves (a helpful hint dear Seth- renouncing racism by using a black actor means nothing when you have tastelessly exploited that racism for cheap laughs already, at the expense of the victims).
One interesting bit worth mentioning concerns the cultural currency of the moustache. Neil Patrick Harris plays the smarmy, moneyed competitor for Louise’s affection, his evil marked by the silent-movie-villain waxed curls above his lips. He does not tie anyone down to train tracks, but it’s easy to hate this character. He is the proprietor of “The Moustachery,” a shop for the refined (read: wealthy) gentleman to care for and preserve his elaborate facial hair, that looks a lot like the overpriced artisan shops hawking handcrafted soaps and natural moisturizers. It’s an idea ripe with comic possibilities left mostly unexamined. Unlike people of color and women in this film, no joke is made here at the expense of the men who patronize such establishments. I guess McFarlane didn’t want to alienate the flannel-shirted males in cuffed-jeans haughtily skulking about artisan storefronts and barber shops in this day and age. But we do get a catchy tune about the glories of having a moustache that I cannot eradicate from my brain.
If there is any McFarlane tradition I can support, it is the preponderance of musical numbers in his work. The film as a whole offers little else to recommend it. A Million Ways to Die in the West definitely has some laughs, but none that stick with you. His predilection for confusing the mere act of spouting offensive garbage with comedy is sadly alive and well. If you must see it, I suggest waiting until the commitment requires the smallest investment of energy and money possible. As in, wait for it to stream on Netflix.
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