Hatfields & Mccoys: Bad Blood

2 and 1/2 Stars: BAD BLOOD Draws Little Blood Badly
For all that I've heard about the rousing feud that took place between the Hatfields and the McCoy families, HATFIELDS & MCCOYS: BAD BLOOD drew very little blood. There only are a few killings here - though I have absolutely no idea how much if any of this is based on historical events (though I suspect there must be some correlation) - and what there is I'd hardly call `bloody.' Still, there's a respectable undercurrent of shared loathsome running through the entire piece - I wish it had been given greater clarification - so, on that front, I'd give it a decent two and one-half stars as a TV-grade oater.

The story? Well, there are these two familes - one called Hatfield, and one called McCoy - and they basically don't play nicely with one another. The script doesn't give any great exploration as to why - suffice it to say that there are hints pointing to being so closely tied to a dividing line between the North and the South in the Civil War - but it's given way too...

...just mediochre.
Lately Christian Slater has been making 'payday films' much like Val Kilmer.
2 stars is generous.
This film left me dangling after having seen the Costner film. In fact I felt I had been hanged and scalpted. If you are curious...rent. You have been warned.

The Kevin Costner Hatfields and McCoys is far superior.

Dear sweet lord...
It probably wasn't fair that I watched this on the heels of the History Channel's version, but I did, thus my review of this movie might be *slightly* biased.

First of all...it is so historically inaccurate that it's not funny. I can't give too much away here without spoiling it for everybody else, so I won't go too much into the plot. However, very little was accurate in this tale, from the murder of Asa Harmon McCoy to the killing of Ellison Hatfield to the Hatfields' attack on the McCoy family to simply who survived the feud and what worked out in the end. Secondly, the acting ranged from bad to lukewarm. Maybe it was because of the dreadful dialogue, I don't know. But the kid who played Johnse's little brother was memorably terrible, as were the men playing the McCoy brothers. Kassandra Clementi didn't fare any better as Roseanna (but, again, that might be a bias, as I really loved Lindsay Pulsipher as Roseanna in the HC version). Sean Flynn (Errol Flynn's grandson, in...

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