Stagecoach: The Texas Jack Story

"There's a man coming from and he aims to bury you." Nathaniel Reed (Adkins) lived the life of a stagecoach robber and was successful. After taking down a large score him and his band decide to go their separate ways and live straight. Years later his past comes back to haunt him, and Calhoun (Coates) a former victim turned US Marshall is bent on revenge. In recent years most westerns have been what I call the $5 Westerns, meaning that the movies seem to be made on a budget of $5. This one had higher quality, not a ton, but enough. The thing this really had going for it though was that it was good. Surprisingly good. The movie isn't all that original or amazing, but compared to the recent crop of B-westerns this is easily one of the best. The acting is what you would expect but the story is actually well developed and interesting enough for you to stay interested in. The one down fall of this movie was the time jumping. The movie went from past to future to past to present and it was overly confusing. Some of the events didn't seem to line up, but other than that this is defiantly worth watching. Overall, one of the better westerns lately and one that I liked a lot more than I expected to. I surprisingly give this a high B.

This movie was horrible. Bad script, bad acting, even the gun fights were horrible. Just bad, bad bad bad bad! Not even of B movie quality. The few people you will recognize have always played side character, and this movie will show why the should stay there. This was one of the worst movies I have seen in a long time.

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.

...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.

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.