I dabbled in muzzleloading firearms many years ago and had begun to get into "buckskinning" when other things intervened and put an early stop to it. The American frontier is endlessly fascinating no matter whether it was along the Blue Ridge, the Mississippi or the Rockies.
Mr. niteowl77
Yes, a little knowledge spoils it. I bought my first pistol last year this Rugar 38. It took me six weeks to my license because the background check found some obscure FBI finger printing of me form college when I was rounded up with five other fraternity brothers for having a case of beed IN THE TRUCK of our car. We were 20 years old. I paid a 25$ fine. Anyway I had to go to the trouble of getting that scrubbed.
Anyway, I decided to take lessons from an active ARmy Ranger. It was great. About the third lesson, he shows up with an authentic British Flint Lock pistol. It was actually a repro, so I thinking this going to be more reliable than the real thing.
It fired once out of five times, mainly because the air was pretty damp. I can’t imagine what it was like in Revolutionary times, fighting the Indians. Technically, in the movie it didn’t look like flint lock pistols, but still, they didn’t convey the ordeal of what it’s like to fight an army of Indians with their arrows coming down on you.
My trainer told me that the British Calvary officers would have 5 to 6 pistols in various holsters as they rode into battle.
I think you need a balance in movies like this, a great story line, that includes a love story or touching scenes of a man and woman, (not in dreamscape mode like this one), followed by the epic proportions of the scenery.
For me one star movie is junk, some 2 stars are worth seeing, 3 star means you were thoroughly entertained and enjoyed it, got your mony’s worth. 4 stars means the movie sticks with you for several days and beyond.
This was a 2 1/2 for me, maybe a three.
Clint Eastswoods movies are always 3 and 4s. Even some of the od ones, like Buckskin Billy
Although modern Hollywood has made great leaps and bounds in presenting accuracy in visually recreating time-periods in terms of mise-en-scene, my problem is that they’ve gone further and further astray in reflecting the culture and attitudes of the times. They’ve a tendency to make ‘period’ pieces (even well into the 20th Century) seem so strangely stark and aloof. Omitting so often the importance of community, family, and the element of romanticism in their worldview. There’s almost always a weirdly unnatural dourness, which filmmakers seem inclined to impart on anything that takes place pre-1950s.