Go West

NOW IN THEATERS! Prepare to laugh your saddle off with the riotous comedy feature Go West, directed by Stephen Meek and Jeremy Warner. Narrated by Sean Astin, it tells a tale of treacherous tee-hees featuring a wacky wagon train merrily trekking in a particular direction (guess which one). There is the lovely Miss Cora (Mallory Everton), whose body is so chronically ill that blood and feces escape regularly. Her sister, the widow Aveline (Natalie Madsen), gets a letter telling her that her teenage daughter in Oregon is fixing to marry a notorious outlaw. Both need to get west, so they join up with Eljah (Stephen Meek), who is going to teach school out yonder.

Leading their train is Captain Evander Lillianquist (Matthew Meese), who will guide them, as well as fellow travelers Hank (Jeremy Warner), Terrance (Stacey Harkey), Angus (James Perry), and Percival (Adam Berg). However, our heroic trio forgot to pay a half-cent on their supplies, so shopkeeper Robert Failure Gladstone (Whitney Call) closes shop and pursues them with her henchman Chesterton (Jason Gray). But the West is waiting with baited breath to deliver all 32 flavors of calamity on our poor pioneers. Will Aveline make it in time to stop the wedding, or will the buzzards feast on the entrails of their hope?

“…her teenage daughter in Oregon is fixing to marry a notorious outlaw.”

Western comedies have a notoriously hard time catching eyeballs. Even the evermore scarce genre fans don’t usually relish a jokey ha-ha version. Blazing Saddles is the best ever made, but outside that, you are left with Sunday reruns of Support Your Local Sheriff or the doldrums of a late-night viewing of A Million Ways to Die in the West. The rest of the territory is littered with flicks that ring childish, like The Apple Dumpling Gang saga or Terence Hill’s oaters. Most modern attempts have come and gone without much notice, even those by big-time comedians.

However, against all odds, the plucky folks in Studio C, a longtime comedy troop that sprang out of BYU, have not only survived but have prevailed with Go West. That is because everyone involved is funny. The first two minutes running up to the opening credits will make you laugh your guts out. The cast and crew then pick said guts off the floor and use them to jump rope.