Legend of The Oro Arrowhead (2021) Review
Legend of The Oro Arrowhead opens with a man who we’ll later find out is named Jim (Stephen Thompson, Home by Sunday, The Mutt) being chased through a dark forest before going back to show him coming into town in an old Mustang. It seems his father died suddenly due to a heart problem nobody knew he had. And he’s here to take care of his belongings.
Almost immediately a few things become clear, everybody in town remembers and likes Jim. And his father was acting strangely before his death. He developed an obsession with Native American culture and was ordering camping supplies and hiding arrowheads in empty cereal boxes.
Not everybody is glad to see Jim back, including Mr. Grady (Bill Rahn, the film’s director) who responds to Jim’s questions about his father with a warning to pay his respects and get out of town. It only gets worse when he mentions his father’s interest in something called the Oro Arrowhead. That makes him so upset he spits out his chaw and storms off.
Rahn, who also co-wrote Legend of The Oro Arrowhead with Chris Adams (Hometown Hollywood – The Movie), lays things out in a familiar pattern. The wholesome ex-military protagonist comes home to deal with a death in the family. He discovers they were involved in something odd that makes the locals, including his best friend who’s now the sheriff, very uncomfortable when he asks about it. So he starts looking into it himself. It’s a staple in almost all genres from horror to westerns, and when used properly is still a good way to get a film started.
Unfortunately, there’s no feeling of danger or sense of urgency to any of this. Instead, we get lots of shots of him driving around or telling himself things like “I had more intel when I was looking for Bin Laden.” Legend of The Oro Arrowhead runs almost two hours with scenes dragging on much longer than they need to and way too many unneeded shots that serve no purpose at all and would have dissipated any suspense the film did manage to create. Rahn has a long list of credits but they’re almost all faith-based dramas and morality plays. He seems to have no idea how to pace a thriller, build tension or even stage a simple fight scene.
Eventually, we learn that the Legend of the Oro Arrowhead is a Native American tale about an artifact that can bring great power to whoever possesses it. Sabal Fade (Robbie Dernehl, Hometown Hollywood – The Movie), who lives in a huge mansion crawling with armed security, wants it at any cost. But even after this, which should be the point where things heat up, we still get endless shots of Jim wandering through the woods while bad pop/rock plays in the background.
Finally, after a lot more wandering and a repeat of the chase we saw at the start of the film, he runs into Gola (Vanessa Ore, The Penthouse, Imperium). She’s part Cherokee, knows about the arrowhead, and tells him his father was murdered on Sable’s orders, just like her uncle was. But by that point, all you’ll care about is how much longer Legend of the Oro Arrowhead is going to drag on.
Legend of the Oro Arrowhead is a failure on just about every level. The story is generic and frequently silly with characters to match. And despite the fact almost nothing happens until the final act, it goes on for a hundred and thirteen minutes. When we do get some action the fight choreography is terrible and the film’s climax is laughable both because the fights are poorly done and because the acting is actually worse.
Vision Films will release Legend of The Oro Arrowhead on VOD and Digital platforms on June 7th. It will be available on DVD on August 2nd. If you’re looking for something similar to watch, FilmTagger has some suggestions.
I spend the whole time trying to figure out why they didn’t hire a first nation’s actress. I literally was like maybe she is but maybe no ,it was distracting .The acting was horrendous
I was trying to give her the benefit of a doubt that she was part Native American because I’ve guessed wrong before, but by the end of the film I honestly just wanted to write the review and forget I ever saw it.