What score do you give a movie that's unremittingly awful, but contains so much cliché, poor direction, continuity, writing, acting, etc, that it's actually hilarious? The Shooter makes Blazing Saddles look like The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford.Story: Film director finds old silent film western script and decides to graft a sadistic Clint Eastwood vibe onto it. So much to laugh at. There were so many reaction shots at one point, I expected the horses to get some, and one did. The hero's braces (US suspenders), that perform no function except to keep slipping off his shoulders. The hero's name, Michael Atherton, is the name of England's well-known (over here) cricket captain throughout the 1990's - it's as though Harry Potter had been called Wade Boggs. And his hat! A brim Katharine Hepburn would have balked at. And sorry, but he's way overweight! Looks like he's wearing five shirts and seven pairs of trousers (US pants).The chief baddie, standing in the main street gasping in his totally hoarse baddie voice, "Can you hear me?". "No!" you will shout. The way they all slowly walk up to face each other during gunfights. Guy in gunfight falls off balcony - check. Guy in gunfight falls into horse trough - check. Six-shooters have 35-round capacity - check. Hero, due to hang the next morning, doesn't notice his cell door being unlocked while he's - sound asleep! Hero and heroine ride off into sunset - yep, they do.The heroine rides off on the same spotty horse that appears under one of the baddie gang five minutes later. She keeps a bag with $10,000 dollars in it on her (bordello) bedroom table. The hero makes the most miraculous recovery from violent torture ever seen. I haven't scratched the surface. No, you have to see this film to believe it.

Aw, come on, have you ever seen a western, (or any other movie) where the horses do a whoopsie, or have you ever seen a pile of it in the street where they live? Of course not.But there is plenty of "it" here. In the script, the story, the plot, the whole darn 85 minutes of it. Be warned, it is a real struggle to keep watching.The "Hero" rides along, hears screams, finds the "baddies" whipping a poor girl and guess what? BANG, BANG, BANG. and the girl is rescued and taken to Kingston, to Duncan's saloon, where she "works", (as they call it).Alas, one of the bad guys was the son of a local real bad guy, who sets out to revenge the killing of his son. Of course there is the gunfight or three, where "hero" is such a sharpshooter.

Where do I start? The hero should have learned to ride a horse before filming a western. Red lipstick marks on a persons back really don't look like whip cuts. Hats of that period didn't have modern metal ventilation holes and the style of saddles used were not developed until the mid 1900s. After firing about eighteen rounds, our hero finally had to reload his six-shooter and there was zero "kick" when revolvers were fired. What bad guy takes the time to tie the picture perfect rope noose to hang the heroin? Who knew all the "whores" out west were so attractive? I could go on. All in all,a very amateurish production.

I'm surprised about the many female voters who even give this film better marks. My thought about this film was that the target audience is adult and male. Whipped and tortured women, merciless revenge and a high body count are typical ingredients, introduced into film history by the spaghetti subgenre. The opening and the hand-smashing are DJANGO rip-offs. THE SHOOTER however lacks the style of e.g. DJANGO. Score, acting and cinematography are mediocre at best but if you look for the above mentioned ingredients you are in the right place here. And the actors don't have an Italian accent.4 / 10.