Westerns are my go-to genre. I'll give any western a chance to impress me, and utterly disregard other genres on principle. The problem is, most westerns don't impress. Quite aside from the lack of marketability of the genre outside of the US, or within the US for that matter, a fair number just aren't good. It's a snake eating it's own tail, I suppose. Bad westerns make less money, meaning studios won't distribute them, meaning the ones that do get made have to be made cheap and tend not to be that good, etc, etc.
I have no idea if Jane Got A Gun is going to be good or not. The behind the scenes turmoil that plagued the film might inform the final product, or there may be no sign of unease on screen. We'll have to see the movie to know for sure. What is known is this: the film is getting a wide release on Jan 29th, which is rare in and of itself. Without a name like Eastwood or Tarantino attached, westerns tend to get limited and quite releases (look at this past year's superb duo of The Homesman and Slow West; both fantastic, both very invisibly released). So maybe Lionsgate and the Weinsteins have some faith in the Natalie Portman-lead tale of survival and revenge. Certainly doesn't hurt to have a female lead in a male dominated genre to promote; not in the age of Katniss. My hope though is that the final film is a little more... subtle than this trailer suggests. I'm hoping that they've cut the footage to give it more of an action vibe to attract a broader audience. But westerns, for all the shoot outs and horse chases and train robberies and other tropes of the genre, really do need to mosey.