05/22/09 - Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles (1974, 93 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/

With some free time I finally watch another movie after having not seen anything since The Lord of the Rings. I put in the Mel Brooks classic Blazing Saddles.

Blazing Saddles follows the black Bart (Cleavon Little) as he is assigned to the town of Rock Ridge. Rock Ridge is under attack by raiders sent by the politically minded Hedley Lamarr (Harvey Korman) who wants the space for his railroad. Gene Wilder plays Jim, the assistant to Bart while he's sheriff of Rock Ridge and Madeline Kahn rounds out the cast as singer Lili Von Shtupp.

This film is about humor - Mel Brooks's own brand of humor. Unfortunately, to discover if this humor is for you or not, you have to watch this kind of movie and I discovered that it wasn't for me. Sometimes the jokes were dirty (probably very dirty by 1974 standards) and sometimes they were stupid. Very rarely were the jokes funny - most of the time they were just goofy and barely chuckle worthy. To say that the movie is a comedic masterpiece would be a lie, but I do give props to Brooks for incorporating so much humor in the movie. It's just that I myself didn't find a lot of it funny.

The acting by the characters is good and works for the movie. Little is good in his role as a black sheriff. He has a lot of charisma in the scenes and this is exactly what's required of his character. Korman plays a decent politically corrupt villain though he doesn't really stand out. His acting works for the comedic nature of the film. Wilder is superb as always, acting many times with his face and not saying anything. His expressions are priceless.

Overall, I gave this film a 5/10. The humor, which is what the movie is about, is just lacking in my opinion. Perhaps it's aged poorly or something, but I just didn't find Brooks's film style to mesh well with what I like in movies.