Best movie ever!

How wonderful it is to see this fine actress carry a film and carry it so beautifully.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

Blistering performances.

Although Texas Rangers is a tribute to a force that has a proud tradition of contributing law and order to our second largest state, the story of Leander McNelly and King Fisher just didn't work out the way it did. Perhaps there should have been that way, but just as Elizabeth Tudor and Mary Stuart never met in life, McNelly and Fisher didn't have it out.TV stars James Van Der Beek and Ashton Kutcher are a pair of young recruits that Dylan McDermott as McNelly signs up for the newly reconstituted Texas Rangers. During the Civil War and the Reconstruction period the Texas Rangers had been disbanded. After the carpetbagger government was finished, the newly elected Texas State government reestablished the Rangers and they had a great responsibility as the US Cavalry was dealing with Comanches as its primary mission.King Fisher as played by Alfred Molina was one nasty dude, no doubt about it. But his primary source of income was cattle rustling. He rarely committed crimes like murder north of the border, bad for business to get people madder than they really could be. He stole cattle and sold it to the local Mexican satrap whomever it might be at a given moment. The wanton murder you see here was not really his style though he'd kill you without hesitation if you got in his way.In any event the state of Texas and King Fisher reached a negotiated truce and Fisher became a prominent rancher in the Uvalde area. I saw his grave there and he's one of three prominent citizens Uvalde claims, the other two being Dale Evans and Vice President John Nance Garner.Texas Rangers is a good TV movie about this body of law enforcement in its early days, but it's hardly ever going to be rated a classic.

From the opening shots through every scene acted out afterward NOTHING that is depicted in this movie EVER happened. It is a worse distortion than "Tombstone." I don't know where to start. For openers, the actor portraying McNelly admonishes a Ranger who is about to leave the service that he is "riding a Ranger horse and saddle, wearing Ranger clothes and carrying a Ranger gun," and if he leaves he will be arrested for theft. Anyone who knows squat about the Rangers of that day knows they had to bring their own horse, tack, weapons and clothes and then they would be considered for the service. Using Ranger badges for target practice is absurd beyond words. At that time the Rangers HAD NO badges. Just a letter stating they were Rangers. The makers of this movie either did not know or care. All a Ranger had to do to quit is ride away with what he brought. Also, John "King" Fisher was not a Mexican. He never shot down a crowd at a cattle auction. Leander McNelly's assignment in the Nueces Strip was to stop Mexican raiders from stealing cattle in Texas. His run in with John "King" Fisher was incidental and no shots were fired. McNelly and his men rode out to Fisher's ranch, arrested him and turned him over to a local sheriff. Days later they met Fisher and some of his men on the trail. Turns out Fisher had a friend who was a local judge and the judge let him bond out. McNelly had no authority to override that and Fisher went free for a time. The Black man McNelly took into his band was a former slave named Ben Kinchlow. He was hired as a tracker at no pay,just meals and equipment. When the shooting started between McNelly and the Mexican raiders, Kinchlow held the horses. The Mexican General was an officer in the Ruales, not the Mexican army, and he had no connection with Fisher. He was killed in the first shoot out with McNelly's men. The pistols McNelly's men used were black powder five shot revolvers. The pistols used in the movie had not been invented at the time. The rifles they used were single shot, black powder muzzle loaders. It wasn't until around three years after McNelly raided Mexico that the Rangers were given 1873 Winchesters. Over all the movie is an almost amusing "western" shoot-'em-up. The kind kids paid 15 cents to see back in the 1950s. It has nothing to do with the Texas Rangers. I don't know where the movie was filmed, but I know the land from Corpus Christi to Brownsville to the Rio Grande and is is an ancient sea bed, flat as a football field as far as you can see. This movie could have been titled "Leo Gorcey and the Dead End Kids" and the title would have been no more non-related than calling it "Texas Rangers."

I had never heard of this movie and whatever reviews were written about it, but the best I can recreate is that it's "inaccurate". Well I get over these things easily if I'm enjoying myself. I stumbled upon it as one of the many delights of daytime TV and hell, it beats fresh air. The opening credits alone already amused me, how do you cast James Van Der Beek, Ashton Kutcher and Usher Raymond(which is a way classier movie credit than "Usher" by the way. Think of the hassle when he plays an usher)and sleep at night? Ashton Kutcher still talks like he could fall of a water tower any minute, and it doesn't help that Van Der Beek's last name here sounds a lot like Dawson, but Usher proves to be a halfway decent actor, he might be one of the only rappers/singers/businessmen that actually took lessons and is believable in any way. Director Steve Miner gets everything filmed, probably within time and budget, but really doesn't have a lot of creative input, this looked like a job for him, the splatter from the two better/less awful "Friday the 13th"-installments suits him better. The story is not that compelling but provides quite a lot of surprises, even though they're not all that well written. The big problem really is that our main actor needs an extra dimension which he can't provide. We can't all be Clint Eastwood and we don't need a bad imitation of him, but try to make what you feel seem genuine,not like you're still that guy from "Dawson's Creek" trying to get into bigger projects. The casting just ruins it a bit for me, it could have been very good but it's not.

All the elements to makes this a great genre movie are present here, especially in its formulaic but yet promising story premise. Then where did it go wrong? By the characters and cast for starters.The movie has an impressive cast and most do a more than fine job. It's ironic that however the actors I were most worried about (Usher Raymond, Ashton Kutcher) did a great job playing their roles and the actors I was most confident about (Dylan McDermott, Tom Skerritt, among others) were miscast in the movie. But disappointing or not, every character in the movie lacked some good development and background. The main character (played by James Van Der Beek) start off promising but as the movie progresses you more and more begin to wonder to yourself what makes the main character so special or even relevant for the story. Dylan McDermott is a good actor and he also for most part is good in his role but he just isn't convincing enough as an experienced tough dying gunslinger. It makes you wonder why Robert Patrick and McDermott didn't switched roles in this movie. It would had made the story at least a bit more believable. The main villain is being played by Alfred Molina. Perfect you would think. The character however seriously lacks some development and depth which makes him a pretty shallow and way too uninteresting main villain for the movie. And then there are the actors who are just simply underused in the movie, such as Tom Skerritt. I mean does he even have lines in this movie? Cause I really can't remember any. So poor casting and character treatment all around for this movie.They tried very hard to make this movie a cool action movie, also with a bombastic action score from Trevor Rabin. But however the movie is lacking in way too many action sequences to make this a good genre movie. They also desperately tried to make the action moments cool, with quick shots and cuts, that however really don't add up to each other and instead make the movie an incoherent one when it comes down to its action. The movie as a whole has poor editing all around. It almost seems as if this movie wasn't even shot entirely and the movie was not put together until in the editing room, when it was too late to do some pick up shots.Despite it's promising premise, nothing in the movie really works out the way it was supposed to. It really is too bad because in its core this movie really had potential. But perhaps they should had known better not to touch the Western genre, that has been pretty death by now for the few past decades. This movie now is nothing more than a still somewhat watchable movie for on a rainy afternoon, that perhaps should had gone straight-to-video immediately instead. Perhaps best watchable for the die hard genre fans only, everyone else can better just skip this one.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/