Blazing Saddles

Blazing Saddles

This is an uproariously funny movie. Typically, today's comedies will leave me laughing at few short instances or not at all. This movie had me weak at numerous times, especially at the beginning and the end. The thing I loved most about this film was that it worked as a combination of satire of the Western genre, with the closing aerial shot and the original Western music, and the visual gags, like when Mongo punches a horse in the face and kills it instantly. The film opens on some workers building a railroad (featuring numerous startling uses of racial and homosexual slurs) and a humorous scene about how the racist railroad managers value their men's lives less than horses and a cart. The story really doesn't matter but it doesn't really matter because it's all about the gags. Almost every joke hit home with me, especially when the fight scene moves into the other sets at the Warner Bros. studios and when they go to see their own movie. The attorney general is so comedically evil, satirizing the force of evil typically seen in Western films. In addition, the insane plots to save the town, like the toll booth and the fake town help poke fun at some of the wild schemes in old Westerns as well. As a whole, except for an important racial theme, this movie is not thought-provoking and does not have the ability to make social chan. However, this movie was great fun and well worth a watch for those tired of stale rom-coms or unending body humor found in some modern comedies.