Impressive location shooting in northern Arizona helps this rather worn plot along, and so does the acting.Tom Conti, ex teacher and ex Civil War sergeant, his wife Kate Capshaw, and their little boy Kenny Morrison, pull up stakes back east and head out West where a man and his family can escape the violence of the Civil War and breathe the fresh, clean, anarchic air.They offend one of those crusty, villainous families that are so often offended in these Westerns -- "Shane," "Will Penny," the Clantons -- and Conti and family are pursued by these revenge-driven miscreants over snowy hill and grassy dale.Well, I'll tell you. They don't know nothing' about survival in the West. Their hides are saved only by the appearance of Sam Elliott in buckskin and leather, toting a repeating rifle and various other gear. Elliott guides them through the wilderness towards the rude log cabin, miles away, that they will some day call home. But, of course, not if the evil family has anything to say about it.Time and again, the pursuers and the pursued wound one another but each carries on, leaving a trail of blood. The pursuers actually are winnowed down. One by one, they are plugged, except for the youngest, who sensibly decides to hell with it and rides off alone towards home. The rest of the pursuers don't fare so well.The plot line really is hoary. A pioneer family are unprepared for the violence they encounter and are saved by a romantic, sun-tanned stranger. The family's wife is attracted towards the mysterious savior and vice versa. "Mrs. McKaskel, if you wasn't married I'd of chased you till you dropped," says Sam Elliott, by way of declaring his deep affection for her. Mrs. McKaskel's pretty pale-blue eyes glow with pleasure.The acting is professional enough. Nobody can complain. Sam Elliott is his usual laconic, masculine self. He has a habit of holding conversations while facing at a right angle to the other, which gives him an opportunity to stare over his shoulder at the person he's addressing. Poor Tom Conti is saddled with a face that's about as interesting as a bowl of porridge, a kind of fleshier Dustin Hoffman, and his voice sounds like he suffers from an adenoid condition. He handles the role very well but those attributes knee-cap his performance.Kate Capshaw is quite a fox when you get right down to it but she's usually cast as a properly brought up, middle-class figure, as she is here. Only one film, whose title I can't remember, gave her an opportunity to show a slinkier and sexier side. I was genuinely worried about the family's son. He's about ten or eleven years old. I quailed at the thought of another cuddly kid saying cute things, but this kid can act. It could have been awful. He might have had disabling asthma attacks under stress or something. I shudder at the thought. That I never wanted to stomp him like an insect is a tribute to his talent.I enjoyed the message though. I thought it was carefully considered, thoughtful, and humane. Only Wussies swear off violence. Real men kill.

With a title that was later reused for another movie, one would expect that this western would show at least one gun fight, you know like the one at the OK corral, but this movie hasn't one. What the title is referring to is a mystery and that is probably the key word for this western.Now the first mystery is the mysterious stranger played by Sam Elliott. Sam Elliot? Yep, the same. I am probably like many other people who instantly respect a man like Sam Elliott without actually knowing why. Sam Eliott is known, but if you ask me to tell you what from I have a hard time to tell you. Sam Elliott is a decent actor, but apparently not considered to be able to carry a leading part in a major movie. Or at least.. I can't recall one. But never mind about that. Here Sam has a leading role. Now the mysterious part about the mysterious stranger points to an overarching mystery. The question to ask is: why? Why does Sam Elliot help this family that is riding out, all alone, into the wilds? Why is this family braving the wilds on there own? The reason supplied is that they go to some place to breed cattle on the invitation of a family member, but still.. is traveling on your own such a good idea? Why are the bad guys sitting around in some forlorn village, consisting of 4 houses, lacking any inhabitants? Were they waiting for this single family to happen along so they could rob them, kill the men (a man and his son) and rape the woman? It remains a mystery.Another mystery: there is an half breed Indian helping them.. why? He just happens along, gets a drink and he is the best of mates with these bad dudes. Again we don't know why.So these bad dudes steal the horses of the family.. and thus the story kicks in. The husband of the family gets the horses back, covered by the mysterious stranger who shoots one of the bad dudes. And the bad guys then want revenge. While the family treks through the wild hoping to outrun the bad dudes, the bad dudes try to catch up with them. Several times they do catch up, which results in some fighting which whittles down the group of bad dudes.. who thus thirst even more for blood. The story then follows a rather linear plot and ends in a predictable way. It is nothing to write home about. And again another mystery rises: the family went out in the wilds to do some cattle raising. Where is the cattle? They didn't bring any along.. and the hut they end up in seems to be in some valley in between mountains. Not the kind of country one would associate with cattle raising.The whole story is like that: a mystery as to why people do what they do. But the greater mystery is just the failure to make more of this story. The mysterious stranger confesses himself to be a half breed, just like the half breed Indian who helps the bad guys. One would expect something to result from this. They could have been brothers. They could have been anything more than adversaries, but nothing develops. There is a potential conflict between the mysterious stranger and the husband in the family, but even that sizzles out to nothing.The story is bland. It is not the acting that makes this movie mediocre on it's own. It is the lackluster plot that is pretty linear and shies away from anything interesting.This movie is a forgettable movie.

Sam Elliott's Con Vallian is the classic wandering western frontiersman loner, who keeps popping up to save one lone traveling immigrant family(McKaskels) from a small gang of vultures(shabby Shabitt, kin and associates), who are intent on extracting vengeance for Vallian's killing of one of them when they are about to murder the man of this family(Duncan) for trying to retrieve the two horses they stole from him. Vallian makes clear periodically through the film his reason for wanting to protect this family from harm. He's mightily attracted to the beautiful, wholesome, Suzanna(Kate Capshaw); Duncan's wife. At one point, he catches her alone in the woods and extracts a passionate kiss from the ambivalent Susanna. Although Vallian saves their lives from the Shabitt gang several times, and they help save his life after he is wounded by this gang, Duncan sometimes wishes he would get lost, correctly suspecting he's trying to steal his wife's heart, and fed up with Vallian constantly giving them advice on what to do next, and criticizing Duncan's reluctance to use a firearm. Eventually, they become somewhat more comfortable with each other, after Suzanna assures Duncan that she is not tempted to have an affair with Vallian. It's clear during their parting conversation that Vallian still enjoys the strong admiration of Suzanna, if not her physical intimacy.Vallian might aspire to replace Duncan in Suzanna's life. However, he makes no effort to hasten Duncan's demise, protecting him as well as her from harm. Besides, he wouldn't be willing to settle down as a sedentary family man, even with a fantasy woman like Suzanna. As he details at the end, he has to feel free to wander as he pleases, living life on the edge each day, with occasional opportunistic female encounters: normally with squaws. Vallian supposedly is a half breed, but certainly doesn't look or act it. On the other hand, the supposed half breed Ute, who serves as tracker for the Shabitts, clearly has lived as a Native American, but is clearly played by a full Caucasian.The McKaskels supposedly left their native Ohio to help forget the horrors Duncan witnessed participating in the Civil War. Well, since this story clearly takes place in 1876, dated by the reported current massacre of Custer's 7th cavalry, including Suzanna's brother, they sure took their time escaping the 'dangerous' East. Another big problem with this explanation is that the Big Horn region of northern Wyoming was still regarded, by treaty, as Native American territory: off limits to European settlement. Thus, historically, the story about Suzanna's brother building them a well made cabin (complete with glass windows!) out in the middle of this 'Indian' territory isn't plausible. The NAs would have burned it down, as they had the forts built in this region 10 years earlier. As demonstrated by the 7th cavalry fate, if they were looking for a peaceful hideaway, the Big Horn region wasn't it at this time! The concurrent influx of gold seekers into the Black Hills, to the east of this region, was stirring up renewed conflict between Europeans and NAs in this general region.The 'reluctant buddy' plot device used here is quite common in westerns and comedies. It tends to provide a more interesting screen play than films that feature a pair well attuned to each other..... The feature of a small group of nasty 'hyenas' pursuing a moving target for revenge or profit or both has also been rather common in westerns. Examples from the period of classic Hollywood westerns include : "Wagon Master", "The Cowboys", "Will Penny", "Along the Great Divide", "Ride Lonesome" and "Ride the High Country". Often a sexual encounter with a woman included in the victim party is part of what they want and, often, as in the present case, the woman is forced to learn to use a firearm effectively to help defend herself.The location shooting in northern Arizona provides a scenic surrounds, with varied topography , from red cliffs and spires, to desert vegetation, to thin woods, and sometimes with snow-capped mountains in the background. This is a significant plus for me.

The kid is called a "rugrat" by the bad guy. Not an 1880s term. Barrett should know better. Otherwise it isn't a bad Western. Thank God they filmed in in the good ol' USA. 1987 was before the Canadian government pulled all the production out of Hollywood.