The message boards are gone. The community is lost. I just wanted to comment about the damn dog, but now the only way to do that is by leaving a review. That was the one gripe I had. A dog wouldn't do that with the dynamite. I know that was your idea, Dekker! Did anyone else feel the same? Please respond by writing a review since the message boards are gone.

Although somewhat reminiscent of "Hell on Wheels", this Western is a little different. The man called Edge is the kind of anti-hero-on-a-mission-of-revenge who can callously kill someone and then make a good (sometimes) joke about it. He never seems to be scared of anything, as if he figures he should have died long ago and is living on borrowed time, but living to the fullest. The Sheriff tells him, "You are evil but you got principles. I like that." The Sheriff (played by great character actor William Sadler) is evil himself, so he should know.As bloody as the first half is, the second half of this hour-plus pilot is several times bloodier. "Gratuitously" comes to mind. The only innocent character, Benny, for example, did not deserve to die, but he does. Also, the "Epilogue" goes way over the top, set at a private men's club in St. Louis, Missouri where two prostitutes--at least one if not both male--are openly fellating two club members (not even in a back room).Up until the final, nihilistic carnage and garishly decadent epilogue, I liked the gritty appearance of rundown farms, rundown towns and rundown people. I also liked that the women's hairstyles approximate 19th century styles more or less. (In so many Westerns, the women have unmistakably 20th century hair.)The banter between Edge and others is funny although sometimes corny. Edge says to the Sheriff something like, "If your yapping ever comes close to making a point, wake me up." Or better--and this is approximate, too--he says to the saloon girl, "I just started my job, and I get paid $2.50 a day". She says, "I charge $5, so I'll see you tomorrow". Or even punnier, he says, "The Bible says a man turned to salt". She replies, "He should have turned to liquor, that's the cure". At the end she asks him if he has seen the "gilt box" (the story has a maguffin as well as revenge). He replies, "I've seen plenty of guilt" (pun intended) "but I haven't seen your box"--crude double entendre intended.Amazon makes these pilot episodes and you can never tell at this point which one will become a regular series. For example, their much better series "The Man in the High Castle" was shown as a pilot over a year ago, and finally, this month, there is more than one episode with more to come in less than a week. So the jury may be out on "Edge" for a long time or a short time. It depends, allegedly, on how many viewers give Amazon positive feedback.

I saw this on Amazon Prime under the title EDGE THE LONER. It's the pilot episode of a would-be western TV series, directed by Shane Black and with a decidedly adult edge: this episode is chock-full of highly stylised combat and bloody battles, with fingers being blown off and bloody squib hits throughout. It makes a refreshing change to the usual sanitised stuff we see on TV.The predictable storyline (about one man's revenge) is the worst thing about this show. However, it makes up for that with Black's strong direction and the well-choreographed nature of the frequent action. The final shoot-out is particularly well handled and enjoyable to watch. Cast-wise, Max Martini (PACIFIC RIM) has little chance to show charisma as the lead, but there are dependables like William Sadler and Ryan Kwanten playing the baddies, so it's not all bad. If this test pilot does get picked up for a full series it has plenty of potential for greatness.

It made HELL ON WHEELS look like UNFORGIVEN. It was free and I fast-forwarded through half of it, but it was still a deeply depressing experience as a western fan. To say this wasn't up to Shane Black's usual quality standards would be the understatement of the year. It was like a terrible NAKED GUN-style comedy spoof of a western they would have made in the 80s... But if it didn't realize it was a comedy.So, uh.... What exactly were they going for here?It wasn't even remotely close to being gritty enough to work as a real-world western (obviously!). It was goofy and silly, but not clever or funny, so it didn't work as a spoof of the genre. The OTT action wasn't cool or OTT ENOUGH to work on an insane-fun John Woo level. And it didn't seem to realize how deeply terrible it was, so it failed to even capitalize on working on a "so intentionally bad it's fun" level.So... A super-goofy-and-silly, yet oddly straight-faced-and-unfunny OTT western action show with sub-par action, terrible acting, and amateur cinematography? WHO WAS THIS MADE FOR?!! Certainly not any variety of western fan.Plus, a Shane Black movie without a single line of good dialogue? I thought I'd never see the day.... What a wasted opportunity.