The movie was originally intended to have a cinema release but for some reason that was scrapped and it ended up as a tele-movie, shown on TNT in July 1995. This resulted in the film being little known which is a shame - it's a rather good revisionist western with solid performances from all the leads and Sam Elliott has never been meaner or harder than here playing a no nonsense lawman.
The film may not be up to the standards of Eastwood's Unforgiven but it does play with the same themes of redemption and loss. The action scenes are excellently staged and the film is graphically violent in places.
The DVD issue I got had the film bundled in a four pack with The Wild Wild West, Jeremiah Johnson and The Cowboys - an odd mixture and although I've already got the Wayne and Redford movie, and have no interest in the Wild Wild West, I was happy enough to pay the £5.99 asking price in order to get The Desperate Trail.
All in all it's a bloody good western - more violent than the usual TNT product but not gratuitous in any way - frontier life was often hard and brutal and this film attempts to tell it like it was.
5 comments:
I love the TNT productions from this era. Hadn't heard of this one—thanks for the recommendation. I will have to Netflix it for late nights with the little one!
I had almost forgotten about this one. I saw it all those years ago when it aired. I thought it was really good. It deserved more attention than it got.
I rented this on DVD (Region 4) a few years back. If I see a "budget" bundle here, I'll buy a copy for keeps. It's a good yarn -- the kind of themes I like to tackle and have tackled myself, when it's allowed by the "market", which seems to be no longer without ridiculous censorship. In certain quarters, this movie's passing nudity, coarse language and a female lead who has killed her husband (if I remember correctly) would be frowned upon hugely.
Keith
I'm sure I've seeen this film because I love Sam Elliott. He's my favourite actor in westerns along with early Clint Eastwood and the more gritty John Wayne. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for it.
It's a great film and yeah the female lead did kill her husband. But it's a very feminist movie for a western.
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