Sweetwater

Presumably, sibling directors Logan and Noah Miller intended this oddball oater to be a gender-bending homage to the spaghetti Westerns of Sergio Leone in which Clint Eastwood's "Man with No Name" took vengeance on those who wronged his family. The villain here is a religious fanatic named Josiah (scenery-chewing Jason Isaacs), who apparently will kill anyone threatening his iron control over the titular town, which he has turned into a 19th-century cult commune. One of those who are murdered happens to be the rancher-husband of Sarah (January Jones), an erstwhile hooker who turned over a new leaf when she married, but now suffers both loss and humiliation at the hands of the lascivious Josiah and his minions. Understandably, Sarah takes up her guns to systematically wipe out all malefactors. A third major player in this revenge tale is outsider Sheriff Jackson (Ed Harris, doing a sort of Gabby Hayes imitation)—sent to investigate disappearances in the vicinity—who is drawn into the fray. For some reason this pulp nonsense attracted notable actors, but while the Millers clearly intend this to be at least partly a spoof, their ridiculously overwrought saga induces the sort of laughter that arises from derision rather than amused appreciation. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)