Dawn Rider

This movie is good in the way a Steve Austin action movie can be good if you know what to expect. It feels like a parody of a western because all the stereotypical elements are there but it treats itself seriously. That's why some will like it and others completely hate it so it makes it difficult to recommend to anyone.

I personally found the clothes and sets a little distracting because everything felt slightly wrong for pre-1900. The low budget probably limited what could be custom made so you just have to overlook it. The music was also wrong in a few places, some points have an almost comical tone and don't match the situation.

If you are the type to get bothered by details then this movie would be difficult to get through, otherwise it's a good average western themed movie. I just don't consider it a good western.

"Dawn Rider" is a remake of a John Wayne "B" western of the 1930s. The original version ran only about fifty-three minutes, while this remake runs an additional forty minutes - which happens to be one of the big problems. There isn't enough story here to justify a ninety-three minute running time, so frequently the movie runs at a VERY slow speed. But there are other problems with the movie. The movie is also quite dull, and while there are several action sequences, they are very unexciting. While Christian Slater has given some fine performances in the past, he's hopeless here, the last person you would consider being a hardened gunfighter despite not shaving for several days. Donald Sutherland only appears in five brief scenes, indicating he was only hired for a few days so that the movie would qualify for Canadian content rules. The production values are okay, and there are a few well-photographed sequences, but that's not enough to make the movie appealing to even western addicts like myself.

When I saw the cast I thought I was going to be in for a good western even though the score was pretty low on IMDd. But in the past I saw movies that I liked that ranked low here so I thought I give it a try. Well this time the IMDb ranking was spot on. This western is not really worth watching unless you are bored and have absolutely nothing else to do. If the budget was 5 million it for sure went just to the actors because they didn't spend much on anything else. Another western where there are only like 10 people living in a town. Could you really not afford some extras as bystanders? The plot was also very predictable, what made it quite dull. I was glad when the movie ended and won't watch it again.

"When my father died he was trying to tell me something, Dos Equis." When fugitive John Mason's (Slater) father is killed by a group of masked bandits he decides to hunt them down and get his revenge. Things get complicated when he realizes that the bandits are closer to home then he thought. I have said a few times now that I don't know what happened to the western genre. After "Dances With Wolves", "Tombstone" and "Open Range" the genre seemed to fall off drastically and is now limited to very low budget cheesy made-for-TV movie type movies. I was looking forward to this one mainly because of the cast. I thought finally a descent western that I will like. While this is a great many times better then 90% if the recent contributions, this felt the same as the rest. This could have easily been another made-for-TV movie if not for the cast. Nothing really original and this is not the return of the great westerns I was hoping for but this is easily one of the better ones in recent memory. Which isn't really saying that much I know. Overall, worth watching and entertaining but it is a little slow and still a B-rate western. I give it a B-.

Jill Henessey is looking old, as is Sutherland, because he is. Slaters constant drinking, smoking and quotes got old fast. Henessey as an Annie Oakley wanna be, finally gets a chance to use the gun she keeps displaying to shoot her worthless criminal brother and doesn't. Why in the world didn't any of the fools who saw the masked marauders during the day put two and two together on their clothes and hats? They looked the same in town except no masks. Even in those days, you didn't just pull the badge off a dead man and become his replacement. A bounty hunter who is also a US Marshal is tracking a man who cheated at cards in a Mexico prison resulting in the death of one prisoner and the release of another for a family that wants revenge. Wow, talk about a reach. The only thing I find mildly good about this is the ending. Everything from opening credits to that point was a waste of time.