Blueberry: l’expérience secrète (Renegade) is a very secret experience indeed. This two-hour film, directed by Jan Kounen (Dobermann) and reportedly "very loosely based" on the comic by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud, plays as a two-hour trailer: the story does not make any sense, but it looks great. After you have seen it, you will wonder why they kept a coherent, fun and entertaining film an experience so secret that you will not see any of it at your local theatre. 

Blueberry (Vincent Cassel) is a sheriff in a small US town. He has lived with the Indians for a long time, after having escaped from a brawl with Wally (Michael Madsen) over some "hooker" in his adolescence. Now their paths cross again: Wally is back and looking for the a manuscript that details where to find gold  that had been hidden in some misty mountain range. Wally and Blueberry follow each other on the way to these mountains, and once there they share "the secret experience". Does this sound awfully contrived and completely ridiculous to you? Let me tell you something: you have not yet seen how it translates to the big screen, and it would be wise if you spent your money on something else. Even though 2004 has just started, I hereby propose to close the voting for the Raspberry Awards for the worst film of 2004, and incidentally rebaptise them awards the Blueberry Awards.  

 

Did you notice that I wrote the above premise without any reference to "the girl"? She is an unnecessary add-on to the plot (as is often the case in westerns), and if Blueberry were Juliette Lewis’ first film, it would have likely been her last too. The Blueberry Award for Worst Actress is hers. This film could still have been saved had it not been for other completely obscure add-ons such as the supporting roles of Djimon Hounsou (who dies twice!) and Eddie Izzard. They tie for a Blueberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor. It is not that they are plain bad, but it is more that, just like the audience, they are obviously confused as to what they are supposed to be doing here. I still do not understand what they had to do with the story, which leads me to: the Blueberry Award for Worst Screenplay. This movie would have been a sure win in this category had it actually used a script when shooting. It seems more like the filmmakers were doing mushrooms when filming and kept the cameras rolling while the actors practised their worst John Wayne imitations.

 

The "secret experience" that occupies the entire third act of the movie is an encounter between Blueberry and Wally in a hallucinogenic other dimension provoked by Indian shamanism. This entire sequence is ridiculously staged (and not to mention a lame rip-off of Matrix): all sort of creatures move in and out of their bodies in CGI that looks like some teenager, puffing away on some bad weed and vaguely recollecting a Stephen Sommers movie he has once seen, designed his own screensaver but gave up halfway.

 

I will not comment on Vincent Cassel (La haine/Hate), who has proven he can act, but his character is too tripped up in this movie and not aided by any sort of script or direction. We discover in this film that he is not very good at looping either. The film is in English, and the French actor re-recorded all of his dialogue (supposedly to correct his strong accent), but his accent is still unconvincing and does not correspond in any way to the movement of his lips.

 

Nevertheless, there are some minor palatable details in this film. First there is the performance by Michael Madsen. Unlike Hounsou or Izzard he does not need to know what he is doing in this film: his performance is great and the little curl-of-a-smile on his lips betrays he is enjoying this film because of the good smoke he is getting. Secondly, the cinematography by Tetsuo Nagata needs to be mentioned, which is absolutely gorgeous. Most of this film was shot in Mexico, with some work also done in Spain (which explains the presence of olive trees in the "Mexican" dessert). Indeed it seems that the editors of this film (if any), liked the helicopter shots of the gorgeous landscapes so much they put every foot of material shot for this movie in, making this film look great but ruining any pacing that it might have had.

 

My advice: have a look at the trailer, and if you are really dying to see this feature-length, play the trailer one hundred times. At the screening I attended, the only timet he audience erupted in laughter was when -- on-screen -- Juliette Lewis says to her servants who are deserting her: “Anyone else want out?” whilst in the theatre a dozen of people were leaving the auditorium and more were getting ready to leave.

 

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