Back in 2013, I rocked up to top venue St Andrews in the Square to see John C Reilly play a country and western gig; I’m a huge fan of the Walk Hard star, and he’s every bit as good a live musician as he is an actor. Unfortunately, we were standing behind a well-known film star and her entourage, who arrived late, talked amongst themselves, and noisily ate crisps for the entire gig, chucking the empty bags on the church floor. In life, we aspire to be a John C Reilly, a humble, versatile star rather than a rude one; I’ve held onto this observation for over a decade, and I’m pleased to finally have the opportunity to get it off my chest; Reilly’s latest film, an Italian Western called Heads or Tails? provides an ideal opportunity to sing the star’s praises as a singer and a performer.
Reilly plays Buffalo Bill, not the serial killer, but the legend of the Old West in this serio-comic story of young lovers; Heads or Tails? is co-written and directed by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis. The setting is the early 1900s, and Buffalo Bill (Reilly) arrives in Rome with his troupe of cowboys as entertainers, putting on his Wild West show. Buffalo Bill is challenged by a local squire Ercole Rupè (Mirko Artuso) to a bet about whose cowboys are the best, but the Italian double-crosses everyone by betting against himself and demanding that his representative Santino (Alessandro Borghi) throw the match. Rupe’s fiance Rosa (Nadia Tereszkiewicz) shoots Rupe, and the two go on the run together, with Buffalo Bill in hot pursuit…
‘They killed the son of the old master,…’ complains Rupe’s elderly father (veteran Gianni Garko, whose name inspired Donnie Darko), who places a bounty on Santino’s head, but things take a surreal turn into uncharted territory when a decapitation doesn’t stop Rosa and Santino’s romance; I’ll keep the details sketchy here, because it’s something of a genuine novelty the unexpected way this film plays out. ‘A horse knows a liar without even seeing a man ,’ is a line that gives the flavour here; this isn’t a grimy, gritty spaghetti Western, although it is violent and quirky. Heads or Tails? would make a good double bill with The Sisters Brothers, another offbeat John C Reilly western, in that it subverts genre cliches and creates something closer to the surreal view of nature seen in Night of the Hunter, with frogs and snakes to the fore. This film looks like what might happen if Pasolini made a spaghetti western, with lyrical sensuality and explosive jailbreaks matched up against whistled theme songs, wanted posters and vaudevillian comedy; it’s the oddest of mixes but it works like a dream, with Reilly clearly relishing the chance to make Buffalo Bill an unpredictable character to watch, resplendent in his tailored three piece suit as he tracks the lovers down.
‘Being the hero of your own story just like Buffalo Bill,’ says Bill, but even that line is tricky because Buffalo Bill is absolutely not the hero of this story, he’s the antagonist to the heroic Rosa and Santino. Aside from such meta stylings, there’s also some adroit political commentary; Rosa dreams of starting a new life in America, but she’s living in a man’s world where Santino gets all the credit and acclaim for her own actions, and ultimately ordinary people are up against ‘all the motherf*cking oligarchs’. John C Reilly was apparently given the opportunity for lots of personal input into his portrayal of Buffalo Bill, and he’s clearly having the time of his life, but it’s worth noting that Heads or Tails? doesn’t sag while he’s off-screen; a hit from last year’s Cannes film festival, this is an entertaining and richly humorous magic-realism Western that’s a firm recommendation for fans of the genre, with John C Reilly the happy centre and the big draw in this wild, wild west show.
In US theaters and on digital on April 10. Thanks to Samuel Goldwyn Pictures for access.
