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.
