Go West Movie Review

Welcome to the movie review of yesmovies. Our goal is to give you the heads up on filmmaking quality and content so that you can make the best decision as to whether or not you want to spend time or money or both sometimes watching a specific film.

Overview

The movie we are reviewing today is called Go West. This film is rated PG-13 and is an hour and 22 minutes.

This story is about a funny group of pioneers who braved the harsh elements and numerous mishaps to travel thousands of miles out west to find a place that they could call home. The film was directed by Stephen meek and Jeremy Warner. Writing credits go to Adam Berg Whitney call and Mallory Everton.

The cast came from a group of college students at Brigham Young University. They performed in a comedy troupe called Studio C because that’s where they filmed in Studio C but since graduating now they’re known as JK Studios.

What Went Well

Cast

We mentioned this comedic cast which comes from this comedy troupe includes Natalie Madsen, Whitney Calls, Stephen Meek, Matthew Meese, Jason Gray, Mallory Everton, Jeremy Warner, James Perry, Stacy Harkey, Adam Berg, Ruth Clark, Matt Mullen and many more.

Almost all of them played more than one character showcasing their very versatile talents. The title has previously been used in a Buster Keaton movie back in 1925. Then in another movie in 1940 with the Marx Brothers.

The 1979 song by The Village People, Go West which was later covered by the Pet Shop Boys in 1992 is featured in the movie.

Script Writing

Sean Aston who is the narrator of this film. This gives a nice touch and big win for this cast to get him to narrate. There’s a random musical number that’s actually pretty funny if you listen to the words and then the reactions.

The film was written by JK Studios themselves. There are also gems in the film when cast members improvised many lines enhancing the script. For example there’s a line that says I want to watch a man go over a waterfall. There’s a moment in a campfire scene that was delivered by Mallory Everton. It was just a spontaneous line that’s kind of funny.

Filming

They filmed this movie in Utah mostly outdoors from October 15th until November 11th 2022, they picked that time slot specifically to get the movie in the can before winter however the weather quickly turned frigid and began to snow halfway through their shoot.

Luckily it was in sequence so most of the snow worked for them and they ended up with some perfectly snowy backgrounds on set.

As a result they’re out in the wilderness as Pioneers trekking and going west and so it would have snowed.

What Could Be Better

Humour

Not all of the humour lands but sometimes the writers knock it out of the park. There were a few times that might make you laugh out loud but some of the humour is a little off colour.

There is a lot of potty humour and jokes that are kind of done in poor taste and are kind of the lowest level of humour that you can use.

There’s a lot of blood and snot and talk of other bodily fluids in the movie as well but the great news is that there’s no profanity.

Theme

Themes are Illustrated very well, showing the importance of family. The protagonist really at the heart of the movie is a mother who is trying to get West to be with her family and her kids who had gone on ahead of her for various reasons.

Other themes are persistence and determination certainly represented by her.

Recommendations

Some recommendations for three movies that are not similar in the sense that they are going west and specifically going through that Oregon Trail that’s mentioned in this movie. All of these are true stories brought to film .

17 Miracles

It’s very touching very sweet

One More Mountain

These movies represent how difficult it was, how harsh the environment was as they went across the Plains and all of the things that they had to deal with.

The Homesman

This one is not an easy film to watch because it paints a fairly realistic picture of what the Pioneers had to go through.