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Blueberry

Blueberry

Movie · 2004 · 8 people

Jan Kounen's 2004 Western Blueberry takes the genre into psychedelic territory; in France it was called Blueberry, l'expérience secrète, and some markets released it as Renegade. France, Britain and Mexico co-produced it as a very free version of the Franco-Belgian comic created by writer Jean-Michel Charlier and artist Jean Giraud (Moebius), and the film keeps little of the original. Though French-made, it was shot in English to suit its American Wild West setting. It opened in France on 11 February 2004 and in Turkey on 10 June 2005.

The story is set in the 1870s. Civil War veteran Mike S. Blueberry is marshal of the town of Palomito. His pursuit of Wally Blount, an enigmatic killer eyeing gold on Native American land, pulls him into a supernatural adventure shaped by shamanic rituals and becomes a trial inside his own subconscious. Vincent Cassel stars, joined by Michael Madsen, Juliette Lewis, Djimon Hounsou, Temuera Morrison, Tchéky Karyo and Ernest Borgnine. Karyo plays Blueberry's uncle, and Hugh O'Conor is also in the cast.

Because the Blueberry character is little known in the United States, the film reached American DVD in November 2004 as Renegade, marketed as a conventional Western. It received mostly negative reviews on release and failed at the box office.

DirectorJan Kounen

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Cast

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Vincent Cassel Juliette Lewis Djimon Hounsou Temuera Morrison Ernest Borgnine Michael Madsen Michael Madsen Actor · died at 67 Hugh O'Conor Hugh O'Conor Film actor · 51 years old Tchéky Karyo Tchéky Karyo Actor · died at 72

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Through different eyes

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Jan Kounen takes little more than the name and the hero from Charlier and Moebius's comic and turns the Western into a psychedelic inner journey. That nerve deserves credit: in the stretches woven around shamanic ritual, the imagery genuinely pushes past the genre's usual limits. The trouble is a script with no spine to carry the experiment. The hunt for Wally Blount becomes more pretext than narrative engine, and the editing can't hold tension from one scene to the next. Vincent Cassel's charisma tries to keep it afloat, but strong names like Michael Madsen, Juliette Lewis and Ernest Borgnine are often left faint. Ambitious but scattered: intriguing, never satisfying.

Action & Thriller Fan Puts pace, tension and set pieces first; little patience for slow drama.

A marshal, a killer chasing gold, the 1870s frontier... on paper it's a full-on Western. But come for gunfights and you end up deep in a psychedelic world of shamanic ritual. Some of the visuals really land, yet the pace keeps sagging and the chase never builds real tension. Looking for a classic manhunt? This isn't it. Want something strange and experimental? Give it a shot.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

Set in the 1870s Wild West, the film pits a Civil War veteran turned marshal against greed for gold on Native American land. That frame offers fertile ground for looking at frontier violence and the pressure on Indigenous lands. Kounen, however, chooses not to deepen the historical and social layer, using shamanic ritual instead as a doorway into the hero's subconscious. As a result, Native culture can seem less a subject in its own right than a device. That a French, British and Mexican co-production tells the story in English also shows how international a gaze it was built from.

These are not reader reviews: they are short editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives with AI assistance. Reader reviews are below.

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