This Western gets short shrift by it's rating here on IMDb but I thought it was a pretty good one. The theme of course, has been done time and time again, but the principal characters and cinematography help it rise above it's B movie origins. I like the idea of real life fathers and sons portraying characters with the same relationship, so Donald Sutherland and son Kiefer made the story work here, of a long waylaid Civil War soldier returning to his home town only to be rebuffed by a preacher father who detests his son's reputation as a gunfighter.What would have made the story distressing to me is if John Henry Clayton (Kiefer Sutherland) had reunited with his former fiancé, Mary Alice Watson (Demi Moore). That would have made the story more than intentionally clichéd, so I found it appealing that John Henry's ride into the sunset was done as a loner. The most interesting character here for me was Gentleman Dave Turner (Michael Wincott), hired gun of town boss James McCurdy (Brian Cox), who's conversations with John Henry hinted at mutual respect even while foreshadowing a presumed, eventual showdown. If there's ever another 'Gunfight at the O.K. Corral' remake, I think Wincott could make a quintessential Doc Holliday, he had just the right looks and temperament for the infamous gunman.I got a kick out of that scene when John Henry arrived at Mr. Parsons' (Dave Trimble) general store inquiring about the LeMat he had on display for sale. Eventually realizing that Clayton only needed it for the remainder of the day, his offer of a good price on the firearm turned into "Or you can borrow it". I thought that was classic.

I don't want to rag on Canadian productions. This one was made in Bannff. I live in the Dallas area. North and Central Texas, really more West Texas, are thee west of the original movies. That along with Oklahoma, Montana and so on. I live not far from the Chisholm Trail - in fact it's in a mall parking lot today.The point being that this felt like it was filmed in a movie studio - and frankly one that wasn't that well researched. The set looked like a set. It didn't feel real.The dialog narrowly escapes Canadianisms. And certain subtle things in the film are decidedly not Western US. Some of the furniture on set is not 1872 and there are other errors as well.I think the movie could have been grittier. The town wasn't as large as in classic Reconstruction era towns. Plano and Allen Texas were just such towns and post-civil war they were much more substantive and I know this because of photos from that era.People seem to stand around instead of going about relatively normal business. Most westerns have more people in town - which is pretty accurate. The towns themselves are usually not huge but the farmers would come into town to trade.Sutherland and Sutherland did a great acting job with an average script. You see men in worn civil war uniforms at the beginning and by 1872 that wasn't very realistic. The characters in some cases (the Demi Moore character) seemed rather flat as opposed to rounded.The firearms were fairly accurate though by this era Gatling guns were pretty easy to come by. The people were probably a bit too well fed looking. The 1930's and 1940's era Western films were more accurate in that the people often looked worn and haggard. The women were a bit too pretty and the men a bit too handsome. Also the beards and hair weren't oily enough and the beards were trimmed a bit too neatly. The town would have been covered in sand and dirt - the buildings were too neat and too new looking - even in anticipation of the railroad coming through.These guys were not John Huston, Sam Peckinpah or Raol Walsh. The shots didn't create the lushness of Huston's later films. It was a bit too photo-realistic. I would have used filters of various kinds. And I would have aimed for Panavision or modified Cinemascope as these would have created a more lush feeling for the viewer. Many of the larger studios still have this stuff stored in mothballs - I'm shocked they didn't try to access that.Missing especially were expansive and bold shots, and dramatic pauses and cutaway techniques that made for classic Western. Take a look at 1930's, 1940's and 1950's era Westerns and even such of the cheesy Italian spaghetti Westerns - even they were much, much better than this film.This is a 21st century feel good adaptation of a classic Western. It needed to be shot in the Western US not Canada. The look and feel of Canada is great for some kinds of movies. But though some very good Westerns were made in Canada in their day - the stories weren't based on themes from Canada.

Many modern westerns are giving the audience a good flavour of what life was like back then - this is one of them.This is, at last, a movie that allows Donald Sutherland a chance to use his considerable talent - he was criminally wasted in Pride & Prej, which was a movie that demanded it.Both Sutherlands are excellent in this movie, as are the costars who solidly back them up.I'd better also mention the photography and the scenery - both excellent and high quality.This DVD is a keeper, and is one that will be watched again.

Nice surprise have in the same movie, to the most unrated actor of the 70's and the 80's, Mr. Donald Sutherland, and his prodigal son, well known because all those who knew him and appreciated his work, started to love him deeply, till we saw him saving the world, in "24"... This is a movie "with heart" and and it would not work, with other two actors. There's a lot of chemistry between father and son, and it sounds strange but it feels damn good, to saw Kiefer shooting people again, and doing this character that is a perfect mix between Jack Bauer and Josiah Gordon in "Young guns"Great movie. Entertaining and emotional.