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7.3/10
Senior Film Conservator
A definitive 7.3/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Via Pony Express remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Look, if you have a soft spot for grainy, black-and-white westerns where everyone wears ten-gallon hats and shouts their lines, you might enjoy Via Pony Express. If you get bored by repetitive desert riding and simple good-guy-vs-bad-guy stuff, you are going to hate this. It is basically a Saturday afternoon time-filler from a different century.
The whole thing hinges on a letter, but the letter feels more like a prop than a real plot device. Porter is such a generic villain that I kept forgetting his name while watching. It reminds me a bit of the pacing issues in The Northern Trail, where you spend way too much time staring at scenery that, while pretty, doesn't really push the story forward.
There is this one moment where Buck gets saved by a horse, and honestly? The horse is a better actor than half the humans on screen. It just stands there looking soulful while Buck is covered in dust. Classic.
It’s not as energetic as Racing for Life, which at least had some urgency to it. Here, the characters move with this weird, sluggish confidence, even when they’re supposed to be in a hurry. When Porter walks into the ranch, you know exactly what is going to happen next because the movie telegraphs it about twenty minutes early.
Maybe it’s just me, but the way they handle the reveal of the villain feels so clunky. Buck recognizes him just by a 'peculiar mannerism.' I spent ten minutes trying to figure out if it was a weird twitch or just poor editing. It’s hard to tell!
At the end of the day, it is a very specific type of film for a very specific type of fan. It’s not trying to be The Viking in terms of scale or ambition. It just wants to get the mail delivered. It barely does that, but hey, the horses are nice.