Dead Man feels retro, with its black-and-white photography, cameo vignettes and fade-to-black screens to indicate passage of time or changes of scene. You can almost believe that it is an old movie. This is also Native American actor Gary Farmer at his finest.

Dickinson Metalworks in Machine, Arizona, has offered Bill Blake (Johnny Depp) a job. Eager for a fresh start, he hops on the first train out of Cleveland, only to find that the job has been filled. Of course, he spent all of his money to get there and is sitting on the sidewalk with nothing but a suitcase.

He rescues a woman from harassment and walks her home. They end up in bed and her boyfriend walks in. The boyfriend tries to shoot Blake, but the woman jumps in front of him. The bullet passes through her and lodges in Blake's chest. He pulls her gun and shoots her boyfriend, then crawls out the window, steals a horse and rides until he falls out of the saddle.

The man he shot was the son of John Dickinson (Robert Mitchum), and he wants revenge. He also wants his prized pinto horse back. So he hires three gunmen to go after Blake. But Cole Wilson (Lance Henriksen), Conway Twill (Michael Wincott) and Johnny "The Kid" Picketts (Eugene Boyd) have never worked with anybody and are not eager to start now. They seem more likely to kill each other than their intended target.

An Indian named "He Who Talks Loud But Says Nothing" (Farmer) -- who prefers to be called "Nobody" -- finds Blake. He tries to remove the bullet but it is too deep. He nurses Blake back to health and becomes convinced he is a living dead man. When he learns the man's name is William Blake, he is really impressed because when he went to the white man's school, he studied this dead man's poetry.

As Blake and Nobody travel through the west, Dickinson sends out telegrams, newspaper notices and wanted posters announcing an ever-increasing bounty for Blake. His life becomes a constant fight for survival and, according to Nobody, Blake is collecting the white man's metal (lead bullets).

Dead Man is absolutely mesmerizing! It is one of those movies that make you lose track of time and what is going on around you. I did not even want to pause it long enough to fix a cup of coffee.

The photography is spectacular. This film used all our technological advances to produce an old-time movie of extraordinary quality. You have never seen a black-and-white film like this. It is amazing.

The acting is fantastic. Farmer and Depp are colorful characters in any roles, but these took them to their very limits. They make you feel every little change in their emotions or attitude. Each was totally believable in the role he played.

Mitchum as Dickinson, the man who owns and runs the town with an iron fist, is playing the rough equivalent of Gene Hackman as John Herod in The Quick & the Dead. Mitchum gives his character less personality and humor, yet strong paternal emotions, something that Hackman's character totally lacked. It is interesting to compare these two characters and how the actors played them.

Considering how men felt about sons and having their legacy carried on, Mitchum's character is much the believable of the two -- a credit to the writers and certainly not a reflection on the actors.

I really believe the creators of this film intended for it to be a comedy. Instead, they produced a masterpiece of drama, with lots of humor to break up the tremendous amount of tension and suspense.

Dead Man offers something different -- something to get excited about -- and the most unlikely, yet totally likable, hero ever. By the time this movie ends, you will have felt every emotion known at least twice. If you have not seen this movie, you have missed one of the most spectacular movies of all time.