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COWBOYS – Review by MaryAnn Johanson

MaryAnn Johanson , , ,
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With her second feature, Anna Kerrigan completely upends the Western with a thoroughly modern take on the notion of lighting out into the wilderness in order to find the freedom to find yourself. Everything about the foundations of the genre is challenged in Cowboys — the title is both ironic and transformative — from what constitutes true freedom to how it is not, in fact, found in solitude.

Troy (Steve Zahn) is a man with his own issues fitting in: his mental health is rocky, which manifests, in part, in impulse control issues. Which is perhaps a contributing factor in his decision to “kidnap” his 10-year-old son, Joe (newcomer Sasha Knight), and head into the mountains and forest outside their small Montana town, aiming for the Canadian border and, presumably, a new life for both of them. Continue reading…

EDITOR’S NOTE:Cowboys is AWFJ’s Movie of the Week for February 12, 2021

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MaryAnn Johanson

MaryAnn Johanson is a freelance writer on film, TV, DVD, and pop culture from New York City and now based in London. She is the webmaster and sole critic at FlickFilosopher.com, which debuted in 1997 and is now one of the most popular, most respected, and longest-running movie-related sites on the Internet. Her film reviews also appear in a variety of alternative-weekly newspapers across the U.S. Johanson is one of only a few film critics who is a member of The International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (the Webby organization), an invitation-only, 500-member body of leading Web experts, business figures, luminaries, visionaries and creative celebrities. She is also a member of the Online Film Critics Society. She has appeared as a cultural commentator on BBC Radio, LBC-London, and on local radio programs across North America, and she served as a judge at the first Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film Festival at the 2003 I-Con, the largest SF convention on the East Coast. She is the author of The Totally Geeky Guide to The Princess Bride, and is an award-winning screenwriter. Read Johanson's recent articles below. For her AWFJ.org archive, type "MaryAnn Johanson" in the Search Box (upper right corner of screen).