Into the Badlands (1991)

good back-story, and good acting

A Disappointing Continuation

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

You have to admit, Bruce Dern cuts an impressive figure in the black frock coat and white beard. You'll usually find him as a supporting player in older Westerns, usually as a villain, but here he's got the lead as a supernatural bounty hunter named Barston, book-ending a trio of tales set in the Old West. His character does a good deal of narration as the tales move forward, offering bits of gritty, sage advice as he roams an area, by his own admission, somewhere between civilization and the Ninth Circle of Hell.Picking a favorite out of the stories presented is a toss-up to my mind, I liked each one about equally. A casting surprise in the first entry had Helen Hunt as a consumptive whore falling for an itinerant killer portrayed by Dylan McDermott. Her character switches personas in the twist that occurs, reverting to an apparition like figure who might have been right at home in The Band's plaintive song, 'Long Black Veil'.Mariel Hemingway and Lisa Pelikan are distant neighbors in the second story, at odds with each other over the relationships with their respective men. The story is one in which Dracula would have been right at home, considering all the howling in the night the prowling wolves outside their cabin door emitted.Dern's Barston achieves his goal in hunting down bad man Red Roundtree (Michael Metzger) in the final story, but runs into some bad old boys who have other things on their mind when he shows up for the bounty. Even though he's done in by the baddies and is set up for the long dirt nap, he winds up heading for Colorado, just around the bend, and dead ahead. Dead ahead just might have been the operative word here. Throughout the bounty hunter's entire ordeal, I couldn't help but admire an unusual and unlikely physical characteristic - the guy had a beautiful set of pearly whites.

Which is perhaps the most memorable quote in this movie. Into the Badlands is a fun, and very unique Western. The first of its kind I've ever seen. All across the screen are faces that we all know. Bruce Dern, Mariel Hemmingway, Helen Hunt, and Dylan McDermott. All of them helped add to the neatness of this Western motion picture. Bruce Dern, playing a bounty hunter named T.L. Barston, is perhaps my favorite out of the cast. And after that, Dylan McDermott as a fugitive named McComas is my favorite. Both of them did a very fine job in their roles, especially Bruce Dern. He just did it perfectly. Into the Badlands is a very unique, yet entertaining Western, and one I wouldn't mind viewing again.

For lovers of westerns, this isn't the movie to rent. For those who enjoy a cross of horror mythos, tall tales, and undead vengeance, give it your consideration. Bruce Dern plays the mysterious Bounty Man, a nearly ancient gunslinger who keeps a tattered parasol extended over his buggy, in search of his next (financially lucrative) victim. With a similar format to the more tepid Grim Prairie Tales (Brad Dourif & James Earl Jones telling campfire stories in the Wild West), Into The Badlands gives us three tales, all of which border on the supernatural, held together by the greedy Bounty Hunter played by Dern. Helen Hunt (pre Mad About You, post Girls Just Want To Have Fun), Mariel Hemingway and Dylan McDermott round out the name cast. A twisted ending/beginning adds enormously to the dark feel. An absolute must for players of Pinnacle's Deadlands: The Weird West role-playing game.

This was not a well done western. You've got this nut riding around in the blazing sun in a buggy with a parasol over it, killing people for his own reasons. You've got this same person sitting in a snow cave during a blizzard, cutting off pieces of his anatomy which have been frostbitten. Then you've got some woman in a house out in the middle of somewhere shooting wolves that are not there. What is the point of this film? Couldn't Bruce Dern find something better to do? This was a waste of film.