Ghost Rock

First, let me say that I am a fan of westerns, including many of the more recent in the genre. Still, I found this movie to be an utter waste of time.

The action scenes in this movie are easily the worst that I have seen in a movie which was not a total spoof. This is made clear in the second scene of the movie as a man is "thrown out" of a building, which involves hopping a few times out a door into a small somersault. Action scenes throughout the movie have some of the least convincing fake punches, gun wounds, and deaths in cinematic history. Some of the kung fu scenes are a small step up, but the editing into and out of these scenes is awful.

The tone of the story is mostly serious, with random bits of comic relief thrown in, but it becomes difficult to sort these from the extremely shallow story and pathetic acting.

An interesting and incongruous mixture of martial arts and old fashioned gunslinging happen in this western of Ghost Rock. The film is so named after a town where Gary Busey is the town boss. He's having some threats to his leadership coming and he's brought in a group of outlaws as enforcers headed by David Jean Thomas who look like they enjoy their work.

Our nominal hero is Michael Worth who can use a little training in both the martial arts and firearms. He's aided and abetted by Sharon Stone ripoff Jenya Lano.

The film is poor in about every department you can name. I guess you either needed the late David Carradine for this kind of hybrid film or Chuck Norris in his salad days.

Michael Worth stars as a gun-runner who goes up against the local mobster (Gary Busey) who wiped out Worth's friends and family years ago, however a mysterious blonde has returned and is killing of Busey's gang one by one, also on hand is Jeff Fahey who is fairly useless to the High Plains Drifter rip off storyline. When I think westerns I don't think of dynamic martial artistry combining with six-shooters. There is a problem of tone and due to this the movie never gels and we are left to flounder in the silliness of watching a hybrid of two genres that never mix that well. The best of these hybrids was Lone Wolf McQuade but the movie this reminds me was the Olvier Gruner starred dud The Fighter. Which also combined kickboxing with western antics, the western ripped off there was Shane, where as this one rips off High Plains Drifter, even down to the "twist" at the end. This is of course a very silly effort but Dustin Rikert is not much of an action director and for this the movie is fairly dull.

*1/2 out of 4-(Poor)

I am a true lover of westerns, including the "B" westerns of Hollywood's golden era, so I tend to be tolerant of diverse production values. However, this is truly a time-waster. Continuity is sporadic, transitions are sometimes clumsy, comedy breaks are mediocre to silly, and stunt work is often abysmal. Gary Busey is the highlight in this film, although he did nothing to elevate his status by playing in this movie. He is a talented and accomplished actor and would undoubtedly shine, in even the worst movie. (Perhaps he just had that chance.) Now, not every small movie is a time-waster. Some of them turn out to be real gems. This is not one of them.

With their careers drawing to a close, I think Mr.Busey, Mr. Fahey and Ms. Barbeau grabbed the jobs without even reading the script. Oh - wait ! There was no script. This disaster movie disguised as a inept blending of other old western plots had me laughing all the way. But I should have been absorbed in the tale; not laughing. The film screamed "amateur" from the very beginning. Then all through the film (edited I think by the director's sixth grade son) oddly disconnected scenes accompanied by loud (presumably for added drama) music. Although they are featured as the stars, Busey, Fahey and Barbeau were doubtless recruited for a little name power since all of them played only supporting roles. James Hong is always good, but his role added little to the tale. There is little rhyme or reason to this film. I had the impression that the director just winged it from day to day for all of the three days it took to destroy 90 minutes of film.