Westerns used to be the surefire money makers in Hollywood. Directors like John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone elevated the genre to fine art. But comic book heroes nudged the cowboys off the big screen, and the Hollywood Western rode off into the sunset.
Still there is hope on that distant horizon as TV is resurrecting the classic Western. With shows like “Yellowstone,” “Hell on Wheels,” “Godless” and now, “That Dirty Black Bag,” the Western is galloping back into the mainstream.
Nurtured in the style of Sergio Leone’s spare and bloody spaghetti Westerns, “That Dirty Black Bag” premieres Thursday on AMC+. It tells the tale of an upright sheriff (Dominic Cooper) burdened by a twisted past and a scurrilous bounty hunter (Douglas Booth) known for decapitating his enemies and toting them around in — you guessed it — a dirty black bag. With laconic Leone logic he explains: “Heads weigh less than bodies.”
