Six-String Samurai Reviews

A video game masquerading as a movie. The samurai guitar-slinger is Buddy (Jeffrey Falcon), who wanders a postapocalyptic, alternate future in which the Russians dropped a bomb on us in 1957, or so says the opening crawl. It also informs us that civilization is quartered in "Lost" Vegas, and when Elvis -- who graduated from being the king of rock 'n' roll to being a real king -- dies, the search is on for his replacement. There's no denying the film's breathtaking look, all the more impressive for having been achieved on a shoe-string budget. But it isn't about anything, except ripping off THE ROAD WARRIOR with a martial artist in Buddy Holly drag in the Mad Max role. You can't help but feel the script started with someone saying, "Wouldn't it be cool..." and never progressed much further. Wouldn't it be cool to have this samurai dude hook up with a mute 8-year-old (Justin McGuire)? Wouldn't it be cool if, like, Death (Stephane Gauger) and his three archers were going to Lost Vegas and Buddy fought them? And wouldn't it be cool if he fought three bald hit men in "Pin Pals" bowling shirts, some cavemen who attack him with gum balls and a cannibal family who, like, look like they've watched too many episodes of Leave It to Beaver? This smarty-pants tomfoolery might make for an amusing short, but at feature length its fundamental emptiness is painfully obvious, and there's no passing it off as a witty parody of a overplayed genre.