James Hitchcock In 1875, ten years after the end of the Civil War, Texas, especially the area along the Mexican border, is a wild, lawless place where ranchers and homesteaders are frequently threatened by bandits. The State Governor therefore decides to re-create the Texas Rangers, who had been disbanded after the Civil War, to uphold the law. The film follows the exploits of a company of Rangers led by Leander McNelly. The villain of the story is John King Fisher, the leader of a gang of outlaws who specialise in stealing cattle and then fleeing into Mexico, where the stolen cattle are sold to the Mexican army. The gang are ruthless killers, who have no compunction about murdering unarmed civilians in cold blood. It came as no surprise to discover that the film is loosely based on fact and that McNelly and King Fisher were real historical figures; "Leander McNelly" did not sound like the sort of name any scriptwriter would invent for a fictitious character. The film allegedly takes some liberties with the historical record, but these are unlikely to upset anyone other than experts on Texan history.Although the Texas Rangers are, strictly speaking, a law enforcement agency rather than a military unit, the film bears more resemblance to a war movie than to a cop film. The plot is that old staple of war movies, the one about the tough, experienced commander who takes a group of raw recruits (most of them are young men with little or no experience of guns or policing crime) and turns them into a crack fighting unit. In their initial battle with the bandits, the Rangers fall into a trap, and many of the young and ill-trained men are killed. Nevertheless they regroup, attract new recruits and face off against Fisher and his men in a final showdown.The film is directed by Steve Miner, previously known to me only as the man who made "Lake Placid", a dreadful horror-comedy unlikely to appeal to anyone other than those who feel that there is something inherently hilarious about someone getting their head bitten off by a gigantic crocodile. Fortunately, Miner makes no attempt to inject comedy elements into "Texas Rangers", and it is a better film than "Lake Placid", although that is not really saying much.The past few years have seen something of a revival of the Western genre. Many recent Westerns ("Dances with Wolves", "Unforgiven", "Wyatt Earp", "3.10 to Yuma") have been grand films made on an epic scale, but "Texas Rangers" is a much more modest, small-scale effort, more reminiscent of the old Western B-movies. Its total running time is very short for a twenty-first century film- the version I saw on British television recently only ran to eighty minutes. It is essentially a good-guys-versus-bad-guys Western of the old school with plenty of action and gunplay but without any deep significance. There are occasional attempts to inject a note of moral ambiguity- McNelly can be uncompromising in his methods- but there is little doubt that he and his men wear the metaphorical white hats and the Fisher gang the black ones. This is the sort of thing that Hollywood used to churn out by the dozen in the forties and fifties. 5/10

Major86 This film could have been much better than it actually was. Sure the scenery and cinematography were beautiful, but the storyline seemed to be tossed out the window after half an hour. Shame as it had a strong cast, but they weren't allowed to perform as it seemed that the director pressed the fast forward button, there is no character development and actors seem to appear out of no where. An example being Eric Johnson from Smallville, I mean when did he enter the film! He wasn't in the first half of the movie but then halfway through and without an explanation there he was. Maybe if the film was longer and they concentrated on actually telling the story then this film would be great, because all the elements are there. What a shame?

den-barry1 The film was pretty entertaining, very noisy but ultimately fairly ridiculous. The acting was wooden, but fun (not sure it was meant to be so funny....but was nonetheless entertaining because of that!). I also firmly believe that the good guys SHOULD be better looking than the bad guys, so have no problem with the casting overall! Although most of the reviewers mention Kutcher, Van Der Beek et al, am I the only person in the world who believes the narrator who only introduces the story at the very start of the movie was none other than the late, great, legend that was James Coburn? I scanned the closing credits (yes I watched the WHOLE thing!) but the narrator wasn't mentioned at all....was Mr Coburn embarrassed by his contribution or involvement, or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely....can someone PLEASE put my mind at rest (and settle a dispute with my partner!)?

Boba_Fett1138 All the elements to makes this a great genre movie are present here, especially in its formulaic but yet promising story premise. Then where did it go wrong? By the characters and cast for starters.The movie has an impressive cast and most do a more than fine job. It's ironic that however the actors I were most worried about (Usher Raymond, Ashton Kutcher) did a great job playing their roles and the actors I was most confident about (Dylan McDermott, Tom Skerritt, among others) were miscast in the movie. But disappointing or not, every character in the movie lacked some good development and background. The main character (played by James Van Der Beek) start off promising but as the movie progresses you more and more begin to wonder to yourself what makes the main character so special or even relevant for the story. Dylan McDermott is a good actor and he also for most part is good in his role but he just isn't convincing enough as an experienced tough dying gunslinger. It makes you wonder why Robert Patrick and McDermott didn't switched roles in this movie. It would had made the story at least a bit more believable. The main villain is being played by Alfred Molina. Perfect you would think. The character however seriously lacks some development and depth which makes him a pretty shallow and way too uninteresting main villain for the movie. And then there are the actors who are just simply underused in the movie, such as Tom Skerritt. I mean does he even have lines in this movie? Cause I really can't remember any. So poor casting and character treatment all around for this movie.They tried very hard to make this movie a cool action movie, also with a bombastic action score from Trevor Rabin. But however the movie is lacking in way too many action sequences to make this a good genre movie. They also desperately tried to make the action moments cool, with quick shots and cuts, that however really don't add up to each other and instead make the movie an incoherent one when it comes down to its action. The movie as a whole has poor editing all around. It almost seems as if this movie wasn't even shot entirely and the movie was not put together until in the editing room, when it was too late to do some pick up shots.Despite it's promising premise, nothing in the movie really works out the way it was supposed to. It really is too bad because in its core this movie really had potential. But perhaps they should had known better not to touch the Western genre, that has been pretty death by now for the few past decades. This movie now is nothing more than a still somewhat watchable movie for on a rainy afternoon, that perhaps should had gone straight-to-video immediately instead. Perhaps best watchable for the die hard genre fans only, everyone else can better just skip this one.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/