As with a lot of these low rated, recent Westerns, I go in with the idea that I'll probably find something to like about it and figure the other reviewers might have treated it just a bit too harshly. This one started out that way, but then the reality of the filming kicked in. The town in which the action took place looked like it was just built, not a single building looked like it was there for more than a few weeks. It was just too clean and antiseptic looking. In a scene in which we get a bird's eye view of an Indian village, all the teepees are exceptionally white and clean with no apparent consideration that they were in a dusty environment and prone to sun bleaching. The biggest miss for me was the casting of the story's principal character, Jean Jaques Renau, also known as Reno, who was portrayed by actor Jack Kilmer who looked like a teenager, though his age at the time of the picture's release was twenty-eight. I get what the filmmakers were probably trying to do here by casting a guy who didn't look even remotely like a gunfighter and have him rise to the occasion to take on a band of outlaws running an unnamed town. A good idea, but it just didn't work for this viewer. But the most ridiculous thing was when an Apache woman (Delilah Andre) sewed both of Reno's trigger fingers back on after gang boss and mayor Clarence Bishop (Stephen Dorff) had them chopped off for killing the mayor's brother during a stagecoach holdup. Didn't anyone take into account that that might have hurt? Reno gets back into the fray like nothing happened with guns blazing, even though he had to be nursed back to health a second time at the Apache village after taking a bullet during a shootout in town. Presumably on loan from the "Yellowstone" series, Cole Houser and Native American actor Mo Brings Plenty weren't enough to elevate the movie's favorability with their limited presence, and all I can say about Reno's wife Vegas (Camille Collard) is that she looked every bit the teenager that Reno did.
One more observation - keep an eye on the guy that Marshal Roy McCutchen (Hauser) shoots out of a two-story window during the street fight in the latter part of the story. The outlaw hits an overhang above the dirt street, and in order to fall all the way down to ground level, he gives a little push off to help complete the stunt. Bravo, second unit!
One more observation - keep an eye on the guy that Marshal Roy McCutchen (Hauser) shoots out of a two-story window during the street fight in the latter part of the story. The outlaw hits an overhang above the dirt street, and in order to fall all the way down to ground level, he gives a little push off to help complete the stunt. Bravo, second unit!