Aces 'N' Eights

The railroad must go through! A reformed outlaw sides with the dirt farmers in a fight with a crooked railroad promoter who uses outlaws to murder the farmers who oppose him. Good script, good acting, portentous music, along with good photography, stunt work and editing make this an above average Western. Uses all the cliches, of course. Lots of fighting towards the end, brutal murders along the way, but surprisingly little gore, which makes the violence all the more effective.

Far too much concentration on a relentless series of bloody, sadistic atrocities, committed by pantomime villains, against stock character, seemingly helpless farmers who are trying to resist a railroad land- grab. Even Borgnine, Boxleitner and Van Dien fail to lift this beyond the hackneyed, mundane and largely predictable horse opera which it patently is. Character development is shallow and unresolved, and the limited dialogue also limits any engaging plot development. Even the slight twist at the end, as regards the ultimate demise of the chief "badhat" comes across as a desperate, but ineffective ploy to at least try to depart from total predictability. Just about worth a watch on a rainy afternoon, but not if you've anything even remotely more interesting to do... which would not be hard to find.

The railroad is coming and not all people want to sell their ranch to make way for the new rail line. The local officials working for the railroad are violently encouraging the families to sell their ranches at the railroad's price. A railroad official from Chicago has come to help speed matters up, but in a non-violent manner.

Ernest Borgnine is one of the ranchers who are refusing to sell. Working for Ernest Borgnine is a former gunfighter (Luke Rivers / Casper Van Dien) who has tried to leave his violent past behind, and a teenage boy (Michael H. Barnett). Among those working for the railroad is a former gunfighter friend (D.C. Cracker / Bruce Boxleitner) of Luke River.

I generally liked this movie as I favor Westerns. I did feel the script needed more work. I thought there may be a connection between Luke Rivers and the teenage boy - and if there was - I missed the explanation.

Connections/relations/conflicts between other characters could have been developed more. I am uncertain if this is because of the script, the direction, or if the actors didn't have the 'heft' to pull it off. James Stewart, or other 1950s Western actors, had the gravitas to imply much with little.

Because a Mexican shawl is so reminiscent of Clint Eastwood in his 'Man With No Name' spaghetti westerns, Casper Van Dien looked 'wrong' when he took to wearing one late in the movie. Instead of enhancing his gunfighter status, it diminished him in my eyes as he could not compare to Eastwood.

The director has a different visual style. Occasionally his tilted camera angles was distracting. I disagree with his overuse of tight closeups - especially during fight/brawl scenes. I couldn't get involved in the fight/brawl when I only saw the person who threw the punch or the person who received it with no good establishing shots as to which person was fighting who.

I also felt the violent scenes of the railroad enforcers terrorizing the families were too many and went on too long. It was more than I expected from a TV movie. It says something when the credits lists as an actress: "Terrified Woman".

On the plus side, the movie did try to present people on both sides of the conflict being right and wrong, good and bad. You may be right but sometimes it is hard to stop progress. I believe the "Aces and Eights" referred to losing with a winning hand. Within the Western clichés the movie tried to be different, and while it didn't always succeed, at times I admired the effort.

Casper Van Dien stars in Aces 'N' Eights as a former gunslinger in Jeff Kober's band of thugs for hire who up and quits and decides to settle down and lead a peaceful life. Rancher Ernest Borgnine takes him in and life goes well.

That is until Kober's murderous band gets hired by William Atherton of the railroad and he wants a lot of ranches cleared out. And Kober is a man who enjoys killing to make that happen.

I have to say this was a strange western for someone who's seen more than his share. Most of the time if the plot involved the railroad coming through it was a good thing and it was bad guys who had insider knowledge of that happening trying to push people off their land. In some cases it was the railroad, most famously in the Tyrone Power classic Jesse James that was strong arming people off their property, but just killing them? After all, the railroad just wants a right of way, enough room to lay down their tracks.

Which made this western a rather dubious proposition for me. Still there's enough action to satisfy any western fan. There's also an adroit performance Bruce Boxleitner as one of Kober's men who plays a distinctly lone hand.

Local railroad boss William Atherton sends hired killers Jeff Kober and Bruce Boxleitner to get rid of pesky landowners like Ernest Borgnine, who refuse to sell out. Complicating things for Atherton is progressive thinking railroad executive Jack Noseworthy and Borgnine's hired hand Casper Van Dien.

A competent cast of familiar character actors try hard, but this is pretty much done in by the extreme familiarity of the material (see Once Upon A Time In The West) and the fact that the script focuses on too many characters at once, resulting in a lot of half-formed characterizations, sort of like a television series highlight reel.

As usual with director Craig R. Baxley, it's well made and the action scenes are expertly handled. However, Baxley (as well as most modern filmmakers) seems to have left out the nuances that made many of the older westerns true classics.

One thing I could never understand about these type of westerns is the railroad's desire to to take the whole ranch in order to lay a single five-foot wide track. Didn't those wackos ever hear of an easement?