Barston, chasseur de primes

Dern burns up the desert.

Dylan McDermott & Helen Hunt are good, but who needs supporting cast when Dern's soliloquies with corpses are so deadly riveting. A character reminiscent of Kane the `preacher-man' in Poltergeist II, and portrayed almost as eerily, though with Dern wit.

Good western portrayal with authentic undertones. And a dern-good soundtrack too, if you can find it.

Yikes! I just kept waiting for something to happen. Never did! The old western atmosphere was the only thing worth anything. No story line, no plot, characters that go nowhere. You have to wonder what ever makes actors, a director or movie production company think this is going to be something worth spending money, time and talent on.

Which is perhaps the most memorable quote in this movie. Into the Badlands is a fun, and very unique Western. The first of its kind I've ever seen. All across the screen are faces that we all know. Bruce Dern, Mariel Hemmingway, Helen Hunt, and Dylan McDermott. All of them helped add to the neatness of this Western motion picture. Bruce Dern, playing a bounty hunter named T.L. Barston, is perhaps my favorite out of the cast. And after that, Dylan McDermott as a fugitive named McComas is my favorite. Both of them did a very fine job in their roles, especially Bruce Dern. He just did it perfectly. Into the Badlands is a very unique, yet entertaining Western, and one I wouldn't mind viewing again.

This was not a well done western. You've got this nut riding around in the blazing sun in a buggy with a parasol over it, killing people for his own reasons. You've got this same person sitting in a snow cave during a blizzard, cutting off pieces of his anatomy which have been frostbitten. Then you've got some woman in a house out in the middle of somewhere shooting wolves that are not there. What is the point of this film? Couldn't Bruce Dern find something better to do? This was a waste of film.

Unfortunately I have only - at this point - seen the last 35 minutes of this film but based on that it is undoubtedly the finest spaghetti western ever made - or the best not done to be funny parody of one. cinematographer, director , make-up and sets duplicated the look and feel of the Italian films, threw in some marvelous Felliniesque and neo-realism, as done the in the late 40's /early 50's, and made New Mexico pass beautifully as the plains/deserts of Spain. Have to have this in my collection!!! (Just in case, yes I know it is an American made film.) That is the only important thing that needs to be said about the film but read on if you must . Bruce Dern gives a quite interesting version of his bad guy persona (though he is the good guy) and the only flaw I personally found in the 35 minutes was in a bar scene where Dern has pulled back his coat to show an obviously well used gun and he stops when a bad guy shows he is holding a shotgun - by the barrel with the stock on the floor. Sorry guys (writing problem) from that position any halfway decent gunman could take out the shotgunner and at least one person of normal ability without concern. Ah well - it stretched the action a little!.