Spoiler-Free Review

If you, like me, really enjoy the Read Dead Redemption games, or if you enjoy old westerns set in Mexico and Texas at the turn of the 20^th century and which analyze themes of identity and legacy, then you’ll love The Bullet Swallower.

What’s The Bullet Swallower about?

In 1895, Antonio Sonoro sets out to rob a train, but when things take a fatal turn, he embarks on a quest for revenge.

In 1964, Jaime Sonoro’s life turns upside down when reading a book that supposedly outlines the long list of crimes committed by his ancestors.

I loved this.

I haven’t read many westerns, or watched many western movies. So I wasn’t sure what to expect when I embarked on this story, and I was thoroughly surprised and entertained.

This story is a generational narrative. We’re watching a single bloodline, 70 years apart – each man might as well be living in a completely different world. Antonio’s heritage is much closer in time to Spanish ancestors who were cruel slavers to the natives. Despite that lineage, he now has little and wants more. Meanwhile, by the 1960s, his grandson Jaime is a popular singer and actor living a relatively well-off lifestyle. He’s a sensitive family man, and not at all like Antonio.

This story delivered everything I might want from a western, and then some. There was adventure, action, gunfighting, intriguing side characters, vengeance, redemption, and Texas Rangers as the villains.

Something I didn’t expect was the almost mythic stakes overlaying this story. We’re not simply watching one man quest for vengeance and another man grapple with a bloody legacy. We’re also immersed in a sense of magical realism, of spirituality and the balancing of scales, and asking whose job it is to balance those scales. This elevated the story, in my opinion. What would have been fairly standard fare took on new meaning and asked more questions of the audience.

Should you read The Bullet Swallower?

If you would enjoy a story that focuses on Mexican heritage, colonial legacy, and generational identity, all while giving you train robberies and revenge quests and a Grim Reaper, you’ll really like The Bullet Swallower.