Shadow on the Mesa

The thing about reviewing every single film you watch, is that occasionally you run out of things to say. Such is the case now.

Shadows on the Mesa is a made-for-TV western which is roughly fifteen times better than I thought it would be. It has a good plot, characters that have more depth then you'd expect and a Star Wars-esque twist on your typical 'love interest'.

The shoot outs aren't that great, but that's because this was originally made for The Hallmark Channel, which is targeted at all the family. So don't expect any blood, swearing or other material that might make it unsuitable for those out of nappies to watch.

It doesn't need them anyway, as the movie is good enough to not have to bother with trying to attract a more 'adult' audience. I liked it. End of story. 6/10

The main character Rawlins has 1 more facial expression than Arnold as the terminator. He smiled once, maybe twice. His acting chops are wooden and I think the only reason they chose him is because he has those "squinty" gunfighter eyes that are in vogue for these types of movies. All of the costumes were not "aged" properly, same for the hats. Rawlin's holster was brand new, it looked like it was fresh out of the box, it had no evidence that he had used it before enough to be a "fast draw." It certainly didn't look like he had practiced with it. The rifle shots would have gone straight through the buckboard and hit the men taking cover behind it. And if I ever see another movie where a building blows up while the actors never look back it will be more irritating than the whole of this movie was. I can't see how this movie got good reviews. The acting was horrible.

First off, I love Kevin Sorbo. I love westerns. And I really liked his previous western, which I believe was also on the Hallmark channel. This movie had several problems that kept me from enjoying it:

1) The music and dialogue tracks were very poorly balanced. The music was overpowering and the dialogue was a little hard to hear many times.

2) The music in general was very generic, and the background music seemed to be almost the same, scene after scene. And what's worse is the music NEVER stops for more than a few seconds at a time. LITERALLY. It's in your face the whole movie, and I found it cloying and grating on my nerves.

3) Kevin Sorbo has a secondary role in this, and isn't in it nearly as much as I expected.

4) The main character carried the quiet, mysterious stranger type a little far, and it seemed pretty cheesy to me.

And just overall the movie didn't flow very well. It just kind of seemed like a bunch of scenes cobbled together. It never really pulled me in. I hope he does another western more similar to his previous one, but this one I could've done without.

My husband and I really love this movie. We consider it to be a classic western with excellent acting on the part of Kevin Sorbo, Wes Brown, and Gail O'Grady. The editing is excellent throughout and the tug of emotion is carried through very well from beginning to end. Wes handled his role so well, carrying such a grudge which becomes very understandable as the movie unfolds. We've watched the movie over and over again and the one thing that amazes me is that it never gets OLD!! Somehow there is a freshness about this movie that remains no matter how many times we have watched it. I'd have to say that my husband has watched it at least 20 times, I've watched it probably 8 times. I highly recommend it and dearly hope they will make a sequel!!!

This movie comes from the period when Hallmark made and showed good movies. This was not one of the same, sappy, love movies they do today. Today they all have the same story, just different actors and different places.