Times are hard for Daryl (Jeff Grennell) when at the same day he loses not only his girlfriend (Michelle Snyder) but also his job at the ranch he loved. Now all he ever wanted was to be a cowboy, just like his idol John Wayne, but he's hardly able to ride a horse, and there isn't much need for cowboys in the 21st century anymore. Down on his luck like that, Daryl decides to take his own life. But the noose almost round his neck he notices a door in the open field he has never seen before, and falling through it he finds himself ... in his hometown, but 160 years ago. At first, and hardly surprisingly, Daryl thinks he has stumbled into a themepark, and when the realization sinks in he initially feels like a fish out of water. But rather by accident, he helps the local sheriff, Dobbs (Steve Graf), to arrest a dangerous killer, Beast (Jesse Marciniak), and being on good terms with the law can never be all wrong, so much so actually that Daryl is eventually made deputy. Also, he soon enough gets romantically involved with local shopkeeper Marion (Debra Lamb). So everything should be great in yesteryear - if it wasn't for rich man Kane (Vernon Wells), who runs the town and who sees to it that Beast, one of his henchmen, is freed by his brothers (Tim O'Hearn, Mathew Grant sr), and the three of them then rob the local bank, incidently run by Kane. The motive for this is twofold, for one it's a matter of insurance fraud, but also it's a means to lure Sheriff Dobbs and Daryl into an ambush. True, they enter this ambush knowingly, but whatever bad they might have expected, it comes worse ...

Now despite some spots of comedy the story almost naturally supplies, this film is pretty much a must for all fans of old school American westerns, as it pays loving hommage to genre cinema of old, from convincing sets and costumes to old school western-like camerawork,  story structure and plotline - apart from the fantasy elements that is. And of course an assured and genre-savvy direction doesn't hurt one bit either, while a strong ensemble who also look their parts carry the movie rather beautifully to provide pretty awesome entertainment.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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