Blind Justice

Blind gunslinger Armand Assante rides into a town under siege by Mexican bandits, led by villainous Robert Davi. It seems they chased Adam Baldwin's Army regiment and the silver shipment they were escorting into the town church weeks earlier.

With it's vivid heroes and heavies, bright color scheme, and exaggerated action sequences, Blind Justice plays like an entertaining, live action comic-book. I wasn't too surprised to find out that this was in part inspired by exactly that.

This has a nice cast too. Armand Assante is always cool. In a perfect world, he would be an A-list star! Robert Davi never disappoints, especially when he plays a colorful bad guy. Elizabeth Shue is quite appealing as Assante's love interest.

Incredible scenes have Assante riding blind through a wall of flame and being crucified by Davi! The amazing climax is utterly explosive!

HBO Pictures should drop the boring political stuff and go back to making good escapist movies like this.

The movie itself is not that great... it's an unimaginatively-conceived western that is not much more gritty or believable than an episode of "Gunsmoke". The premise is terrific, hearkening back to the plots of old Italian spaghetti westerns... a blind gunfighter carrying a newborn baby comes to a small town overrun by bad men and proceeds to shoot out with every bad guy within range. What makes this movie memorable for me, though, is a GREAT performance by Armand Assante as the blind Canaan. He transcends every other acting job in the movie... no one else seems either authentic or interesting. Assante, however, has done his homework and seems like he wouldn't be out of place at all in an old "Django" movie. Elisabeth Shue is pretty but totally unconvincing as a frontier femme who comes to the aid of Assante and the young baby girl. Every one else is a typical western cartoon... stuffy army officers, nasty bandits with thick accents, etc. (Jack Black appears at one point as an army sentry... which is a little more disconcerting now that he is famous for his more comedic roles.) Fortunately, whenever Assante is on screen he makes the movie work... even some of the ridiculous one-liners. "How do you like your eggs? Scrambled?" (said while clutching a bad guy's genitals).

This movie was really very good. I like westerns as a rule but don't generally like newer ones. I bought this one because I really like Armand Assante. He didn't let me down in this movie. And neither did the movie. It's very different than any other western I've seen yet. They are some gross scenes and some very good action scenes. I liked that alot. I don't like wimpy westerns. Over all a very surprisingly good movie with a great cast including Elisabeth Shue and a small role by Jack Black. If you like westerns this is a good one to get.

Canaan (Armand Assante) is a mysterious gunfighter blinded during the Civil War. He's carrying a baby to a waiting adopted family. He runs into a gang led by Alacran (Robert Davi). He enters a border town with only one road out and cut off by the bandits. They are after a shipment of silver being transported by Sgt. Hastings (Adam Baldwin) and his men. Town leader Caroline (Elisabeth Shue) recruits the blind man to join in the fight for 200 lbs of silver.

This should be a fun campy spaghetti western. A blind gunfighter screams cheese. This movie has no style. Armand Assante is a great actor and he does his job here. Elisabeth Shue is not hard enough to be the town leader. She is a damsel in distress and a romantic partner thrown at Assante. This could be great but it is mostly boring.

This movie has a dark atmosphere, which attracted me in the beginning. There are some flashbacks that I feel slow the thing down too much, but otherwise the story is quite solid. I had not expected this movie, and was pleasantly surprised.