The Desperate Trail

A woman , convict of killing an abusive husband , manages to escape from the marshal Bill Speakes (Sam Elliott) who's escorting to her hanging . After a failed stagecoach robbery Sarah (Lind Fiorentino) and another thief named Jack Cooper (Craig Sheffer) rob the money , the latter managing to snatch away the transported twenty-five hundred dollars from her . So she follows him to get it back . Soon after , she teams up with the con man in a plot to rob a bank to start a new life . While the marshal who wants her dead so wrongly , he even doesn't mind breaking the law , as he enlists a posse and sets after them. Travellers. Partners. Lovers. Robbers. No one escapes from Marshal Bill Speakes.

This The Desperate Trail ¨(1994) contains strong performances augmented by blazing guns , hobbled by weak writing . Nevertheless, it doesn't have much interest at times , neither intensity enough , though Sam Elliott captures his role pretty well . J. P. Pesce's slick direction , he was named Best Independent Director of the Year at the Hamptons International Film Festival for his critically acclaimed film The Desperate Trail (1994) , which he wrote and shoot . Nice acting from Sam Elliot as the merciless avenger Marshal Speakes who's really decided to sentence his contender to the gallows . Star Sam Elliott is a detached figure in Western genre , being one of its main representatives , performing a lot of them in the Eighties and Nineties , as cinema as TV , such as : Cactus , Houston The Legend of Texas , Yellow Rose , The Quick and the Dead , Gettysburg , Hi-Lo County , You Know My Name , Buffalo Girls , Indians, Wild Times , The Shadow Riders , and several others . While Linda Fiorentino is fine as the brave woman and an arrested killer who decides to no longer take any humiliation or battery , as she frees herself . She becomes partner to bandit Jack Cooper well played by Craig Sheffer.

The motion picture was professionally directed by P. J. Pesce , though it has some flaws . P. J. Pesce studied directing under and Brian De Palma and Martin Scorsese from whom he received honors and also studied editing and acting . This filmmaker is an expert on sequels such as he proved in ¨Sniper 3 ¨ and ¨ From dusk till down : the hangman's daughter ¨ and ¨The lost boys : the tribe¨. Equally , he directed a lot of episodes of notorious TV series , such as : ¨Leverage¨ , ¨Fringe¨ , ¨Transporter¨, ¨Under the Dome¨ , ¨Supernatural¨ , ¨American Gothic¨ , ¨Code Black¨, ¨Quantico¨, ¨Blue Bloods¨ , among others. Rating : 6/10 . Acceptable and passable Western . The movie will appeal to Sam Elliott fans.

This little-known Western is well-made and well-cast, with strong performances from Craig Sheffer and Linda Fiorentino. What starts out as a light-hearted romp becomes progressively darker, shading into tragedy at the end. There is an unusual and striking music score, which materially adds to the film.

"The Desperate Trail" is an R-rated straight-to-video Western from 1995 starring Sam Elliott as Marshal Bill Speakes; he wants to bring to the gallows his daughter-in-law, Sarah (Linda Fiorentino), who murdered his son but is blinded to her defense of spousal abuse. In her run from the law Sarah hooks up with a charming conman, Jack Cooper (Craig Sheffer).

***Mild SPOILERS follow*** (although I don't give away the ending)

POSITIVES:

• I liked the ominous "church bells" soundtrack. It's simple and unique but I didn't find it jarringly incongruous to the Western genre as some apparently did.

• The first act was the best, but the rest of the film was still pretty good. It's a solid Western with a lot of drive and Peckinpah-like gunfights.

• What I liked most was the thought-provoking elements of the story. One theme is the evil of spousal abuse. Not just in reference to what drove Sarah to this "desperate trail," but the guy she pistol-whips for giving his wife a black eye (the wife ultimately leaves him and even Marshal Speakes admits the man deserved it).

• Another theme is the corrupting power of the "Eli Syndrome." Eli was a legitimate chief priest in the Old Testament who spoiled his sons and allowed them to run amok, carnally speaking, in their temple service, which ultimately brought God's judgment and their deaths (1 Samuel 2 & 4). Just so, Bill Speakes was obviously a solid citizen, successful cattle rancher and marshal who spoiled his son. His kin-bias wouldn't allow him to see the other side of the story; it blinded him. Although he WAS a good man and in some ways even a great man this bias was his weakness and successfully corrupted him.

• Another theme is desperation. The film's called "The DESPERATE Trail" for a reason. Sarah was on her way to the gallows and would need the stagecoach money to make a successful escape to freedom. Women had few options outside of marriage or prostitution out West back then; how much more so if you're a wanted fugitive? She was desperate, pure and simple. The guy she pistol-whips deserved it. Sarah didn't try to steal money from the members of the stage so she wasn't a "stage robber" in the conventional sense nor did she rob stages throughout the rest of the film, i.e. for a living; it was a one-time thing. Although she does rob a store for needed supplies, but --again -- she was desperate.

As far as her being the heroine and Jack Cooper the hero, in the sense of Bonnie & Clyde, one of the points of the film is that there is no hero. Everyone's corrupt in one way or another, defiled by "the sins of the father," the father being Marshal Speakes. The exception is Jack, who's simply corrupted by his conman nature and desire to provide for his crippled brother, which is another example of kin-bias. Yet he clearly displays traits of love & loyalty, which Sarah is able to easily pick up on after her experiences with an abusive husband. So, although there are strong amoral aspects to the story, one gets the vibe that a certain person or people may move on to a positive and respectable future, once justice is served and they perhaps find the grace of another shot at life, which is a big IF.

NEGATIVES:

• Sam Elliott, the quintessential Westerner, is his usual laconic self, but he's not the main character, plus his role is atypical since he's not the customary easy-going, likable hero; here he's quiet and respectable until one sees his blind hatred and unwillingness to see anything less than nobility in his son, who he obviously spoiled. This isn't a negative to me; I'm only citing it for those who prefer to see Elliot as the noble star in Westerns.

• As the film progresses it becomes clearer that this is a straight-to-video Western. For instance, the film was shot in New Mexico with very fitting locations for a Western, but they seem minimalistic and bleak. Of course, this may have been the point since they're on "the desperate trail." Another example would be a couple cases of questionable dialogue/acting and the simple soundtrack. Again, I don't personally find this objectionable since I appreciate low-budget movies.

The runtime is 92 minutes.

FINAL WORD: "The Desperate Trail" is a solid Western with a lot of drive and action, plus it has thought-provoking themes that are fairly covert and left to the viewer to mine. Although the main characters appear amoral or immoral on the surface the story reveals why they're corrupt and desperate, besides themes of love & justice come into play. However, those who only prefer Elliott in the typical role of the easygoing Western hero should stay away.

GRADE: B

I guess this is supposed to be a feminist Western. While I liked Linda Fiorentino's performance, I also have to wonder what her husband did to her to justify so many murders, so much mayhem. I guess it just spiraled out of control and she did what she had to do to avoid being executed, but some characters were killed who didn't really seem to deserve it. Sam Elliot and Craig Sheffer did decent work, and even Bradley Whitford was OK overdoing a brogue. Like so many Westerns, everybody sure seemed to have an awfully lot of ammunition. The cigarettes and some of the weapons seemed a little bit anachronistic, but the time setting was never really explicit, so never mind. I can't really say see it, but I can't say avoid it either. It depends.

P.S. I don't know if this was a deliberate part of the realism of this film, but about the brief topless scene by Jill Scott Momaday. Her breasts are a bit sagging, noticeably real. I'm not putting down Ms. Momaday, as I prefer that to the more common huge mounds of silicone. Just thought it was interesting.

Linda Fiorentina develops from sexy seductress in The Last Seduction into a merciless killer in this effort, and it's a world away from Jessie the happy cowgirl from the Toy Story films. She'll blast your brains out without so much of a second glance, and she wears them Western clothes like she was born in the outfit. Partnering with a smart mouthed confidence trickster, she's on the run from the always excellent Sam Elliott, who plays a grizzled old sheriff. She committed the unpardonable sin of killing his son (Who she was married to, and he knocked seven bells out of her, hence the reason for her slaying him) so needless to say, this lawman is slightly more persistent in pursuing his target than most...

There are no signs of this being a straight to video effort, as the productions values are decent throughout. There are also some well staged and fast moving shootouts, but in terms of gore this ain't no The Wild Bunch, so the 18 certificate is a bit of a mystery. Like the film I last watched, The Kentuckian, this is hardly going to go down in history as one of the genre classics. But it'll pass 85 minutes, and you won't feel you've wasted your time. Which is good enough for me. 6/10