In the opening scene of Walter Hill’s new western, Dead for a Dollar, bounty hunter Max Borlund (Christoph Waltz) visits outlaw Joe Cribbens (Willem Dafoe) as he’s about to get out of jail, where Borlund put him. This sets the stage for a tale of hard, violent men on an inevitable collision course. And at no subsequent point does the film live up to the potential of this first moment.
