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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: Turner Home Ent
Salesrank: 3835
Released: May 17, 2005 |
| Our Price: $7.93 |
| Used Price: $8.77 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Between somewhere and nowhere in the untamed West is the small town of Refuge. There, neither the sheriff nor his deputy carry a sidearm. There's no jail either, because shooting, carousing and bad blood are not in the town's character. What peaceful folks live there? Wild Bill Hickok. Doc Holliday. Jesse James. Billy the Kid. All long dead. All mysteriously given a chance to undo their violent pasts in Purgatory. All put to a stern test when Blackjack and his ornery gang ride into town.
Description of Purgatory:
Purgatory is a down-and-dirty Western with a twist The Twilight Zone's Rod Serling would have loved. A band of 19th-century desperadoes, led by the monstrous Blackjack Britton (Eric Roberts), takes a wrong turn while fleeing a posse and rides into an otherworldly, off-the-map town called Refuge. Sedate, almost repressed, and guarded by an unarmed sheriff (Sam Shepard), Refuge is a weird haven of hospitality with no jail, a literate shopkeeper (J.D. Souther), an erudite dandy of a doctor (Randy Quaid), a restless deputy (Donnie Wahlberg), and a beautiful young woman (Amelia Heinle) with no apparent family. In short order, Blackjack figures Refuge is his for the plundering. But the youngest of his gang, the innocent Sonny (Brad Rowe), slowly realizes the town's residents are, in fact, dead legends of the American West--Wild Bill Hickok (Shepard), Doc Holliday (Quaid), Jesse James (Souther), among others--spending a violence-free interim before being taken to Heaven (or Hell if they fail). A purely fun if slightly hokey piece of fanciful adventure, Purgatory's colorful cast plays the whole thing straight and gives this made-for-cable film (directed by Uli Edel of Last Exit to Brooklyn) some exciting, six-gun grit and emotional authenticity. --Tom Keogh
Purgatory Reviews:
More than a Western 
2009-10-15 - This is a movie that can be watched more than once with new discoveries. The DVD arrived in excellent condition and within timeline given. I would recommend this movie to people who like Si-fi, Westerns and action movies. Excellent acting.
Great little western from straight out of the Twilight Zone
2009-09-14 - I caught this movie on TV last night after a hiatus of several years. It was a made-for-TV film run on TNT, and should be shown a lot more often. It could have stood on its own as a feature in any theater as a great piece of movie making.
A gang of outlaws headed by the notorious Blackjack Britton lams out of town after a bank robbery and gets lost in a dust storm with the posse on their trail. They take a wrong turn, evading the posse, and come upon a spooky little place with a gated entrance guarded by an ancient Indian, who turns out to be keeping more than one gate. Was it luck or fate that brought them here? The townspeople all seem peculiarly docile. The sheriff wears a badge but not a gun. And Sonny, the youngest of the outlaw band and addicted to dime western novels, not an outlaw himself but who went along for the ride with his uncle, one of the gang members, realizes that the sheriff is a dead ringer for Wild Bill Hickock and the sheriff's friends look exactly like Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Lefty Slade, all dead for years. In fact, that's just who they turn out to be, and the town, called Refuge, is nowhere on earth, but is actually Purgatory, a mid-world created for people who are neither good enough to be admitted to Heaven nor bad enough to be condemned to Hell. Purgatory is their last chance to set themselves right before their final sentencing. But as the sheriff tells Sonny, Refuge is a place of hard rules: no cussing, no fighting, no rioting, no stealing, no violent outbursts no matter what the provocation -- and one of the sheriff's friends finds out tragically just what the penalty for breaking those rules is.
Blackjack Britton and his gang see Refuge as a place to cut loose and raise all kinds of mayhem, and for a while the sheriff tries to deal with the situation through polite admonitions. But the sheriff and his friends realize that some evil is too entrenched to be dealt with by patience and docility, and sometimes one must resort to extreme measures, if not for his own benefit, then for the good of the people he must protect. And who knows, maybe at times giving evil people a taste of their own medicine is justified. As a wily old stagecoach driver observes, "The Creator may be tough, but He ain't blind."
Uli Edel's direction and Gordon T. Dawson's script lift the movie beyond what might have been a banal western into the truly sublime, helped by a superb cast that includes Sam Shepard as Wild Bill Hickock, Eric Roberts in what may be his finest performance as Blackjack Britton, Randy Quaid as Doc Holliday, Donnie Wahlberg as Billy the Kid, J.D. Souther as Jesse James, Brad Rowe as Sonny, and Peter Stormare as Blackjack's henchman and Sonny's evil uncle Cavin Guthrie. It's a perfect little gem of a western, of the kind they don't make any more, with the added treat of a tender love story running through it all.
Judy Lind
If you combined Stephen King and Louis L'amour
2009-09-10 - I must concur with the other reviewers in that I am not by habit a fan of Westerns (I like Tombstone, but that is about it - so obviously I like Western's with a darker vein running through them), but I absolutely loved this movie. DARK is precisely what this film is! I was coaxed into watching it, and at first I thought I was in for the usual wild west mayhem. Then the outlaws arrive in the town of Refuge. Okay, the people seem a bit odd, it now begins to draw me in...and then the church bells begin to chime. I have never forgotten those bells. They creeped me out something fierce. It was at this point that I had gone silent in my viewership - which for me, is proof that the story completely has my attention. If I am watching it Mystery Science Theatre style, then you know I am bored. But this film had me running silent for its duration. This was a really wonderful film. The acting was good, the special effects were good, and the disturbing factor was right through the roof. It's not jumping out of your seat horror or anything, if you are expecting that, then you will be disappointed, but if you find that horror is more in things that make you think about your own fate, then this movie will leave you speechless. This is one of those films that you will talk about after it is over. This is a film about choices, redemption and yes, damnation - and regardless of faith or religion, it touches on concepts that are relevant to everyone. I would highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a good character study, philosophy, and oh yeah, westerns!
DVD Purgatory
2009-07-10 - DVD was in excellent condition. The time of shipping was very fast and all that was described in add was exact. Price was very good. Recommend.
Purgatory DVD
2009-06-24 - A great movie. I liked the different twist of the western. Actors were great. I have watched it several times. Definitely a keeper.
