Deadwood – The Movie

[SalvorHardin]

In between all the brickbats for the Game of Thrones finale and the praise for Chernobyl, HBO have released by a film to conclude Deadwood some thirteen years after the series was cancelled. It’s available on Sky Atlantic.

For those who missed it Deadwood is a western, set during the Black Hills Gold Rush in Dakota territory in the mid-1870s. Like Boardwalk Empire, Deadwood mixes real and fictional characters and it has ridiculously high production values.

Deadwood was never a great hit with the viewers but the critics raved about it, in large part for the writing (I’d argue that it’s one of the best written shows ever, perhaps second only to "Justified"). Deadwood’s writing combined a literary style (some critics call it "Shakespearean") with a lot of swearing. Apparently, the F-word and its many variations appeared some 831 times in season 1.

Here’s an example, where Ian McShane’s saloon owner Al Swearengen is dealing with Chinese boss Mister Wu (it is not work safe)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWGhuZiSPM4

Deadwood managed three series during 2004-2006, being cancelled due to the usual mixture of studio infighting, high production costs and actors moving on to other projects. Ever since then there have been periodic rumours of a movie to wrap up the series and it has finally arrived. The movie is set ten years after the series ended, when the South Dakota territory is becoming a state, and almost everyone whose character was alive at the end of the series is back.

If you haven’t seen the series, it’s worth trying out before the film if only because the film has a lot of characters and refers to many events in the series. I had no problem with it because I saw the series when first broadcast and last year binge watched all 36 episodes on DVD on hearing that the movie was being made.

Here’s the trailer for the first series

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW4Dc-WqvJk

Here’s the trailer for the movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0WrXmhvXTA