Cedric the Entertainer and Whoopi Goldberg co-star in the indie Western set for March 1 release.
Thirty-one years after he earned his spurs as director and star of Posse, the revisionist Western that proved to be a box-office smash, Mario Van Peebles is back in the saddle with Outlaw Posse — not a sequel, mind you, but a brand new shoot-‘em-up set for release in select theaters March 1.
Van Peebles is credited as writer and director of his latest Western, which finds him cast as Chief, a formidable gunslinger who returns after years of self-imposed exile in Mexico to retrieve a stash of stolen Confederate gold hidden in the hills of Montana. Unfortunately, Angel (William Mapother), Chief’s sadistic long-time nemesis, catches wind of our hero’s plans, and plots to grab the gold for himself with a little help from Chief’s estranged son Decker (Mandela Van Peebles, Mario’s real-life son).
Don’t misunderstand: Despite their complicated past, Decker isn’t eager to turn against his dad. But Angel “convinces” Decker to infiltrate Chief’s posse by kidnapping the young man’s wife (Madison Calley) and threatening to cut short her career as a classically trained musician — and her life — if Decker doesn’t do his bidding.
In this scene from Outlaw Posse, Chief and Decker share a journey with the legendary Mary Fields — a.k.a. Stagecoach Mary — played by Oscar-winner Whoopi Goldberg.
“The Wild West was not only brutal, it was also multicultural,” Mario Van Peebles says, “with approximately one out of every three or four cowboys being black. As such, I wasn’t drawn to the reductive, traditional, whitewashed Westerns. And I didn’t want to make a Black Western that was ‘reactive’ to those pictures, either. I was excited by the idea of seeing all of us. This, in some ways, mirrors the colorful diversity I grew up with in my own crazy family.
“I wanted to tell a father-son story inspired by the Johnny Cash song, ‘A Boy Named Sue,’ and informed by my own experiences as both a son and a father. To keep it grounded, I tapped my own actor kid, Mandela, to play my on-screen son – much like my own father [Melvin Van Peebles] did with me in Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song,” the influential 1971 melodrama that was selected in 2020 for inclusion in the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. “If America is a melting pot, then I wanted to cook this cinematic gumbo with laughter, love, and jalapeños. At the dawn of the century, we were all here -- and it will take all of us to fulfill the promise that we originally dreamed up.”
“Yeah, it’s true: Today, many of us are divided,” Van Peebles says. “We don’t break bread together or feel safe making fun of ourselves. My old man used to say ‘It’s boring to just hang out with people who look, think, and vote like you,’ but that’s where a lot of us are at. I’m still a pessimistic-optimist. We may not watch the same news, or even share the same facts, but my hope is that some of us can still have that illusive beer summit, where we bring our expectations down low and enjoy the same raucous ride through the Wild West together. And who knows, maybe we’ll come out the other side a little less divided.”
Other members of the Outlaw Posse cast include John Carroll Lynch, DC Young Fly, Amber Reign Smith, Jake Manly, Neal McDonough, Allen Payne, Edward James Olmos and Cedric the Entertainer. Appropriately enough, the closing credits dedicate the movie “In Loving Memory of The OG Badass — Melvin Van Peebles.”
Here is the official trailer for Outlaw Posse.