Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story

I love westerns and It seems good westerns are a thing of the past. Therefore, I was truly hoping this would be, at least, a decent movie. Instantly, I was disappointed that the acting is below average. Still wishing to like it I watched further and found the story to be predictable. I'll keep searching.

I have to admit I was not glued to the screen for this one. It looked like it might be good. But it just felt flat and sterile. Kind of like a diet soda. It's all there but something tells you its not the real thing. The story was OK, pretty typical. visually it is again passing. The acting is flat and the characters are hard to care about. It does try to be clever and have cool memorable lines but it comes of forced. Things like the firearms having no visible recoil is annoying. Maybe that is nitpicky but this is a moving about gun fighting. It makes the weapons seem impotent/harmless. If you have ever fired a single action .45 i'm sure you'll agree with my observation. "I want you to see this live!" compared to what? I'm pretty sure everything people saw back then was "live". Anyway, I guess I can't say don't watch it. Give it a try. It just did not work for me. Good modern westerns = Tombstone, Unforgiven, even Wyatt Erp, etc. This is far far away from those.

RELEASED IN 2016 and directed by Terry Miles, "Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story" stars Trace Adkins as a former stagecoach robber who turns over a new leaf and marries, but feels forced to turn back to outlawry when a one-eyed marshal tries to apprehend him (Judd Nelson). Kim Coates and Claude Duhamel are on hand as his gang members.

Adkins makes for an iconic Westerner, as witnessed in "Traded" (2016) and "Hickok" (2017). The difference between "Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story" and those two is (1.) Adkins plays the main protagonist and (2.) it's noticeably inferior in overall filmmaking, even though it cost approximately the same amount to make. In other words, as low-budget as "Traded" and "Hickok" were, they worked quite well as made-for-TV (or direct-to-video) Westerns, all things considered. "Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story" is almost amateurish by comparison.

Nevertheless, it has some points of interest for those who don't mind slipshod productions: Adkins is a likable protagonist; the one-eyed marshal was the dope-smoking rebel in "The Breakfast Club" (1985); Michelle Harrison is stunning as the protagonist's redheaded wife, Laura Lee; Helena Marie plays Bonnie, a striking tall blonde deputy with a penchant for killing; the British Columbia locations are effective; and there's a quality moral about not trusting people of dubious character, particularly LIARS.

THE FILM RUNS 1 hour, 30 minutes and was shot in British Columbia (Mission and Maple Ridge). WRITERS: Dan Benamor and Matt Williams.

GRADE: C/C-

...should stick to music.

Saw a few good reviews for this one and assume that they were either part of the cast or watching a different movie.

Lame story. Bad acting. Apparently couldn't even be bothered to come up with new names for the characters. Not engaging, not amusing, not up to the standards of your cheesiest spaghetti western. Fan of B movies and this doesn't even hit that standard. Kept waiting for some redeeming feature...nothing showed.

Way too many minutes of my life gone forever.

Masked men led by Nathaniel Reed (Trace Adkins) rob a stagecoach driven by Calhoun (Kim Coates). Some years later, Nathaniel is three months behind on his mortgage. His wife Laura Lee Reed (Michelle Harrison) is sick. Former running mate Frank Bell arrives with news of another former mate being killed after tortured for information. Despite the warning, Nathaniel refuses to run. Calhoun is now a Marshall and arrives with Bonnie Mudd looking to capture him alive. In the gunfight, Calhoun kills Laura Lee. Nathaniel goes back to robbing with Frank and another mate Sid (Judd Nelson).

My first complaint may seem petty but it is important. I don't like some of the gunshot sounds especially inside the house. They sound soft almost like a cap gun. They need more power. The second annoying thing is the need to make Nathaniel the hero of the story. He insists on not hurting people during the robberies. It's such a weak and obvious move. He's almost a gentleman in the way that he's written. While Trace Adkins has functional acting skills, it is nowhere deep enough to be an emotional performance. All in all, this is not exciting. It is not insightful. It is not that interesting other than getting me to skim through Nathaniel Reed's wiki page.