Avis Metacritic

This is an action movie. It makes no apology for that. But it's high-style action.

Writer B.J. Nelson has skillfully combined plot elements and situations which draw from the best of Westerns and anti-Establishment cop films.

The plot is simplistic, but the film makes no pretense. It is aimed at the action fans, and it should immensely please them. [11 Apr 1983]

The plot, set in and around El Paso, is unimportant and nonstop, like an old-fashioned, Saturday afternoon serial, which isn't at all bad. Steve Carver, the director, understands that in such films action is content.

Fans of Soldier of Fortune magazine will think they've been ambushed and blown away to heaven by Lone Wolf McQuade. Every conceivable type of portable weapon on the world market is tried out by the macho warriors on both sides of the law in this modern western.

This is one of the better Norris action films, showcasing his astounding martial-arts skills. But the film loses power toward the end when the action bends reality a little too much.

So it's all pretty silly. But it does move along, and the range of weapons is formidable. Steve Carver, who did Norris' An Eye for an Eye, knows how to handle action, though Lone Wolf might have been more convincing had he let any of the bad guys shoot straight. [5 May 1983, p.B10]

Lone Wolf gets mad as a bee-stung boxer dog. [18 Apr 1983]

As senseless violence goes, this is very senseless and very violent. Norris is a Texas Ranger, Carradine an oily Senator smuggling weapons to 'Central American terrorists', but the storyline has more non sequiturs than bodies, which is saying something.