One Ranger

I stumbled upon "One Ranger," a 2023 action thriller featuring Thomas Jane and John Malkovich, without knowing much about it. However, with such talented actors attached to the project, I was eager to give it a chance. To my delight, the storyline was a classic police versus criminal tale, which I found entertaining despite its familiar tropes. Writer and director Jesse V. Johnson deserves credit for crafting an engaging script that kept me hooked from beginning to end. Throughout the 95-minute runtime, the pacing was just right. The film struck a perfect balance between action and character development, which made for a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The cast was well-chosen, with Thomas Jane and Dominique Tipper delivering strong performances. The only minor downside was John Malkovich's peculiar delivery, which was distracting at times and made it difficult to take his role seriously. The action sequences were well-executed and complemented the movie perfectly. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by "One Ranger" and would recommend it to fans of the genre.

And here is the paradox. If you are old enough to remember when Tom Jane was a hot-ticket A-lister, ditto for John Malkovich, then unfortunately you are also old enough to remember when both Dennis Weaver and Clint Eastwood did this same story (the former on TV, the latter in a feature), and did it much better. Just about every aspect of the production is weak, but most especially the writing and the editing. Director Johnson, best known for his completely forgettable "B" action flicks, does absolutely nothing to raise his reputation. In fact, ONE RANGER violates one of the "commandments" of film-making, which is to never make the villain more interesting than the hero. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))

As I sat down to watch the 2023 action thriller "One Ranger", I had actually never heard about the movie. But seeing that the movie had Thomas Jane and John Malkovich on the cast list, I figured that the movie from writer and director Jesse V. Johnson might not be all that shabby.

And the storyline turned out to be one of those good old fashioned police versus criminal type of stories. It was actually an enjoyable storyline, generic in its own rights perhaps, but entertaining nonetheless. So writer Jesse V. Johnson did put together a good script here, as I was genuinely entertained from start to end.

The pacing of the narrative throughout the 95 minutes that the movie ran for was good. There was a good combination of action and character development, which kept the movie interesting.

Needless to say that the acting performances in the movie were good. The movie was nicely cast by leading actor Thomas Jane and Dominique Tipper. Nick Moran was also nicely cast and added something enjoyable to the movie. I have to say that the way that John Malkovich was delivering his dialogue in the movie was just weird, it took away from the feel of the movie and it was sort of difficult to take him serious in his role in the movie.

The action sequences in "One Ranger" were good and definitely added to the enjoyment of the movie.

If you enjoy action thrillers then I will say that director Jesse V. Johnson's 2023 movie "One Ranger" is well worth watching.

My rating of "One Ranger" lands on a six out of ten stars.

Except for Thomas Jane's ridiculously over-the-top Texas accent and his cowboy hat that didn't fit, the movie's not all that bad.

A dialogue coach and a properly fitted hat could have turned this from a 5 into a 7 rather easily.

The premise was a bit goofy, but the action made up for it--sort of. There are a lot of flicks out there now that are worse.

Malkovich was hilarious in a part where he channeled Billy Bob Thornton's "Karl" from "Sling Blade" sort of transformed into a British intelligence agent, but it wasn't supposed to be funny. It just was.

Overall, a pretty good way to kill an hour and a half. Not great,, but not bad.

So, fair disclaimer ahead of time, I'm a pretty big fan of most of Thomas Jane's stuff. He's had some great roles that I really enjoyed, and I hoped that this movie would be another chance for him to shine.

Unfortunately, it really wasn't a chance for anyone to shine at all, not even John Malkovich.

Not exactly sure what I expected, I guess I just expected a decent action movie with a Texas Ranger chasing after a criminal. You know, normal stuff. What we got was a weird knock-off of Walker Texas Ranger with a bad script, acceptable fight scenes, and a lot of cliché lines that didn't fit the movie at all. It's like an AI took a bunch of segments from a handful of the most popular action movies and just slapped it all together to create this .... I'm not even sure what to call it. It's just a bunch of oddly disconnected scenes that don't make a lot of sense and are stitched together.

I would also like to point out how ridiculous the gun-play was. Because after realizing half-way through that the story was a bust, I thought maybe things can be somewhat redeemed with a few good gun battles. However, the directors of this movie clearly decided to roll with an emphasis on flashy, and completely ignore believable. There are several scenes where dozens of rounds are fired from handguns that can only hold half that amount. Rifles are given to the main characters from "tactical/strike teams" without sights. Rocket launchers are used on people like it's some kind of video game. Characters using machine guns one-handed, as if recoil doesn't exist and physics don't matter. It's like watching a bargain-bin 80's action movie from the local dollar store, but without the charm, awesome hairstyles, cool cars, and mirrored aviators worn by the main character.

Anyhow, I'm done wasting my time with this review, already wasted far too much time watching this movie. Swing, and a miss. Better luck next time, Thomas Jane.