A Gunfighter's Pledge

I picked this up on DVD and it felt like a TV movie, and hey ho, it was, no surprise there. But I brought it on the strenght of the lead actors, Luke Perry and Thomas C Howell both of whom are very under rated (Perry especially) It's a familiar yarn really. Sheriff (Perry) is in pursuit of the man who killed his family (Kim Coates almost sleep walking through the role) and Howell is the greedy land baron who wants it all. It feels a bit like an episode of the A-Team, but in the Wild West except that people do get shot.

The film has some strenghts, the acting all round is decent enough, and the photography and sets all blend well, but the dialogue is just so ordinary and the score swamps the film, with music almost all the way through and rather than uplifting the scenes makes them all the more banal. Shame really.

In A GUNFIGHTER'S PLEDGE, Luke Perry plays a lawman whose wife and son are murdered by a criminal he has twice incarcerated. Following the killer's trail into Mexico, Perry inadvertently kills an innocent man and takes the man's body home to a ranch where the dead man's sister and son live. Perry stays to help, and crosses paths with a mustache-twirling villain right out of DUDLEY DO-RIGHT, played by a sneering Thomas Howell in a big black hat and attire. Howell of course wants the dead man's ranch and will stop at nothing to get it, including hiring the gunslinger Perry has been seeking. The ending contains a twist. Perry is convincing as a haunted, tired lawman, although Howell is a little too Snidely Whiplash for my taste. Beautifully shot and staged in Simi Valley, Calif.

This movie was made by RHI Entertainment, a company best known for making cheap and boring movies. Like their other movies, "A Gunfighter's Pledge" was made for commercial television, so you won't get any nudity, sex, foul language, or serious violence. Despite these limitations, I will admit that this is the best effort to date I've seen from RHI. The cinematography is pretty good, and while it may be low budget, it never looks really cheap - there are plenty of props and extras in the background.

But despite all that, and my love for westerns, I didn't find this movie to be especially exceptional. It's mainly because of the script - I don't think there's any scene in this movie that you haven't seen in another western before. There is no effort by the screenwriter to put in a few twists, and it's not directed in a way to pump in some juice. Heck, even some of the locations will be very familiar to those who have watched a lot of TV and movies! So we end up with a tired and familiar movie that will make you think you've seen this movie before.

A classic western plot -- a bad guy wants to grab off a small landowner's land and only a laconic wanderer can save the pretty ranch owner -- having killed her man by accident -- runs along in its well-greased way. Luke Perry is fine as the scruffy, squinty, hoarse hero. Jaclyn DeSantis is good as the woman he tries to help and while there are few surprises in this one, it plays nicely to the strengths of the classic western, including some fine camera work by James Wrenn.

It is the old-fashioned camera work that is most notable about this picture, and the color choices that hearken back to silent days, with blue tints for night scenes, an overall sepia wash to the day scenes and an amber touch to the interiors. There are lingering shots when people are riding horses, giving a leisurely but inevitable air to the entire proceedings. A very pleasant TV movie.

A tired, poorly written script puts this to bed and helps you nod off. I'm guessing the producers weren't worried about trying to make a profit from a cinema release. The best part is when it ends. Couldn't come soon enough.