What came first, the hen or the egg? It’s not like I ponder over this extremely annoying question everyday. But for me, there has always been something fascinating about beginnings. How does life evolve, how do people build up a business and how does an artist start a new painting? When it comes to film, it is always interesting to look back at a director’s first – often shaky – steps with a camera on her/his shoulders. In this feature, I will look back at a certain director’s first film every month.
Edgar Wright is extremely funny. Pretty much all the time. And every time I watch one of his movies, I forget about this. And every time, it gets back at me and I end up rolling on the floor laughing. Surely enough, his first feature film A Fistful Fingers was no exception to that rule. The 1995 western spoof is a remake of an even more low-budget movie that Wright produced with some friends – which doesn’t make it look or sound any better than anything me and my friends ever made in high school. However, it is just so. much. fun.
The hero of the story is No Name, a good cowboy who is on the hunt for a villain named The Squint. On the way to find said villain, No Name’s best friend/ horse Easy dies a tragic death and is replaced by Indian side-kick Running Sore. The film doesn’t leave a single western cliché be and adds some campy fun of its own. Think puppet horses instead of real ones, typical Wright-ian meta jokes and references to hidden camera TV shows that used to be popular in the 90s. Of course, the heroine/ damsel in distress doesn’t get a single line except for the one in which she asks for one. Even if there’s nothing much going on in a scene (which is rare), the British accents and setting are always enough to crack you up, when everything else is clearly stolen from golden age American western movies.
Spoof movies are often a tough genre and the movies can be much worse than what they are trying to make fun of (I’m looking at you, Vampires Suck). It is easier though, if the original thing isn’t necessarily ‘bad’ but simply funny, if looked at from a certain angle. That’s why something like Christopher Waltz’s Django Unchained is so much fun. Two ‘normal’ things mixed together can result in something ridiculous and funny. So how there are no more British westerns remains a riddle, because it really works so well in A Fistful of Fingers.
Of course, the film isn’t much compared to Wright’s later movies like Shaun of the Dead or Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. However, you can’t only see his potential but actually witness some of his talent already. If you’re not chuckling by the time the movie flashbacks to No Name and Easy and their intense horse-to-man friendship, I seriously doubt your sense of humor.