Renegade
(aka; Blueberry/The Adventures of Mike S. Blueberry)
(Columbia TriStar Region 1 NTSC DVD)
(2004)
review by Head Cheeze

Jean 'Moebius' Giraud's comic book series, "Blueberry" told the tale of a wild west lawman raised by indians and schooled in the arts of native American mysticism. It was also a mildly erotic, fairly exotic marriage of contemporary French comic book storytelling, and old west traditionalism. It's safe to say that if you've not read Moebius' comic series, you've seen nothing like his take on the old west. It's also safe to say that you've probably not seen a film quite like Jan Kounen's adaptation of the very same comic book. Released theatrically in France as "Blueberry", Kounen's film get's an inexplicable name change (Renegade?!) for it's American DVD release, but, fortuntately, that was the only thing lost in translation.

Marshall Mike Blueberry (Cassel) is haunted by an incident in his past, where his first love, Madeleine (Giocante) was killed during a confrontation with a shootist named Wally Blount (Madsen). Mike is nearly fatally injured in the confrontation and somehow ends up in the care of a tribe of native Americans who not only nurse him back to health, but adpopt him into their culture, teaching him the ways of their people and exposing him to things no other white man has ever seen. When the people of Mike's town are suddenly caught up in tales of mystical mountains filled with gold (located in the heart of his adopted people's territory), Mike finds himself caught between the townsfolk and the indians. Meanwhile, Mike's old nemesis, Wally Blount, comes to town seeking those very same mountains, but not for the gold; no, Wally wants the real treasures they hide.

Blueberry/Renegade is a skillfully shot, gorgeous epic of a western, featuring some really fine performances (Madsen, in particular, is fantastic), dynamite special effects, and a quirky enough story to make it the sort of western even people who hate westerns can appreciate. The somewhat hallucinatory tale is something of a distant cousin to Alejandro Jodorowsky's classic "El Topo", with a conclusion that is, perhaps, one of the most intense (and long!) drug induced trips ever committed to film.

Columbia TriStar releases the film on DVD with a gorgeous widescreen transfer, optional language tracks and subtitles, and trailers for this and several other films. I can only hope that this film stirs up the cult following it deserves, and a more feature-packed version shows up down the road, but, for now, this will have to do.

Blueberry/Renegade is not for everyone. It's a film with a story that unfolds rather deliberately, a screenplay that's got it's share of zingers, and oftentimes Kounen opts for eye candy over story. I'm also not the biggest fan of Juliette Lewis, as I find her to be a bit of a one-note actress ("Oh Look! I'm Crazeeeeeee!"). Still, it's a beautiful film, and it's just such a breath of fresh air that I couldn't help but fall under it's spell.