...from studio to studio...from distribution company to distribution company...they say that for every great film script, pull out from the endless sea of extensive literary meanderings & cinematic hopefuls, and given it's due, there are at least two dozen or so others...some good, most bad...left to languish, lost and unnoticed. Occasionally, the cinematic powers-that-be, do take a gamble on a forlorn concept...one of those thought lost and discarded scripts, which most have turned their discriminant nose up at...save for that rare and singular moment of unconvention, who keenly eyes a laid-aside script of potential...something which elicits a thought-provoking 'hmmm, that's interesting'. A story interesting enough to warrant engaging, even in the midst of what might be considered muddled thespian in performance, and untried in direction & editing. Such might well have been the case, with the respectably thrilling and intriguing 2010 old-westerner, "Sheriff of Contention", which sat collecting dust on a shelf...that is, until Liongate, of all surprising distributors, recently saw fit to shed an indiscriminate and opportunist spotlight on the little film...to the delight of us devotees of the type of period Wild West melodramas, which in this case, unconventionally assume contemporary conventions, albeit on a forgiveably less-than perfect level of presentation...
...Sheriff Peavy is in the throes of almost overwhelming pressure; the people, whom he serves in the dusty frontier town of Contention City, have expressed a growing loss of faith in his abilities, saying that he is 'used up and burnt out'. The sheriff's gun-happy right hand man, Deputy Conley, has made no secret of his ambitions, in possibly replacing the sheriff, in view of his seemingly diminished stature...and even the town's mayor himself has expressed and encouraged such a prospective changing of hands. And in the midst of such personal turmoil, the sheriff...as well as the townspeople...are horrified and perplexed at a ever-increasing series of heinous and ruthless killings, which have targeted the town's womenfolk...
