Nervously at noon – Weekend
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Eight years after the end of Justice, about the hard-nosed Federal Marshal Givens in a cowboy hat, a sequel is coming out where the hat sits on him just as irresistibly.
In the TV series “Justice” (2010–2015) didn’t have cowboys, Indians, ranches, or horses, but it can rightfully be called a western. Federal Marshal Reylan Givens (Timothy Olyphant) brought the cowboy hat into serial fashion long before Taylor Sheridan took up the old-school western revival and dressed Kevin Costner in Yellowstone with it. Givens was invented by one of the most cinematic writers, Elmore Leonard (the number of adaptations of his stories exceeded four dozen), but in his books the marshal was not the main character, but in the series he acquired texture and shone. In the beginning of the old “Justice” for exceeding self-defense, he is transferred from sunny Miami to the mining town of Harlan in Kentucky, where the law is not written to the uncouth local hillbillies far from the capitals. The place of action is extremely important: it is a kind of “frontier”, where the border is constantly shifting not in a geographical, but in a metaphysical sense, and the battlefield is the hearts of people. Leonard was so impressed with how the series developed the plot that he had barely outlined, and especially with the way Timothy Olyphant wore a hat (it had its own special dramaturgy), that he wrote another novel about the stately marshal, Raylan (2012), which became his last work before his death.
Now the orphaned marshal has returned: Givens has more gray hair, but the habit of exceeding self-defense has been preserved. In the new series, he takes his daughter (Vivian Oliphant) to a summer camp for re-education (she broke her classmate’s nose). On the way, the marshal has to rein in a couple of petty criminals who attacked him, and in order to deliver them to Detroit, he stuffs them into the trunk. And on the spot he runs into a clever lawyer Caroline Wilder (Aunjanue Ellis), who claims that he caused her client unbearable suffering, leaving her in the trunk in the sun. But as Gleb Zheglov said in a similar case: what are they entitled to for their art – coupons for enhanced nutrition? Here it is, an unreliable border: Raylan dealt with the criminals “according to the rules”, the law was immediately launched against him, and the law enforcement officer changed places with the violators (literally, Givens was locked in a cell). The authorities immediately find something to do with the marshal hanging in Detroit – to catch the killer Mansell (Boyd Holbrook), nicknamed the Savage from Oklahoma: he does not get into the hands of cops who keep their uniforms clean, and Givens turns out to be very handy, because Detroit, in fact, is such the same Wild West as Kentucky.
“Justice” has changed showrunners – Graham Yost is now listed as a producer in the credits, and scriptwriters Dave Andron and Michael Dinner run the entire show. But this is still the brainchild of Elmore Leonard: the authors of the series rewrote the plot of the 1980 novel Primordial City for Givens – there a completely different character caught the Savage from Oklahoma, who killed the judge. The novel has a subtitle, “High Noon in Detroit,” which is extremely important for understanding the essence of the writer’s relationship with the western. The classic movie western High Noon (1952) told about a stately city marshal in a cowboy hat, who for a day hung between justice and “concepts”: he must resign and leave the city, but the dangerous criminal he once imprisoned, arrives in town a day ahead of his successor, the new marshal. It would seem, drop everything and leave with your young wife, it’s none of your business! But the hero of the film “didn’t run from anyone in his life.” In this gap between “my business – none of my business”, service and friendship, Raylan Givens is constantly found – in the new series, the same classic dilemma. It lacks only the irresistible anti-hero and passionary Boyd Crowder, who adorned the old series – but Givens will find someone to keep at gunpoint.
At the end of High Noon, Gary Cooper, having defeated all his enemies but found no friends in this struggle, threw his marshal’s tin star into the dust and left the city. In 1980, Elmore Leonard released not only the novel “Primitive City”, but also a film based on his script “High Noon-2”, where the noble marshal received his star back. What will happen to Givens and his star on the show remains to be seen. But it is absolutely certain that in the lawless Wild West, be it Kentucky or Detroit, when the earth is slipping from under your feet, only a person who has a cowboy hat on his head and his own immutable moral law inside can resist.
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