Review of The Gundown

The user rating for this movie here on IMDb is woefully low in my judgment. Now it's no "High Noon" or "Unforgiven", but the story line is decent and the wholesome hero returning to the town of Dead River to exact his revenge on town boss Travis McCain (William Shockley), though derivative, shows some grit and energy in the telling. There's a fairly high body count in this one, beginning with the murder of town sheriff Thomas Morgan, portrayed by the only actor I recognized in the picture, Peter Coyote. Well, his wife too, but I wouldn't have known her name, Sheree J. Wilson as Sarah Morgan. So, for a cast of relative unknowns to this viewer, I thought they all did a credible job. Except perhaps for the overwrought and pouty Dulce de la Rosa (Veronica Milagros), doing her best to look menacing but coming across as a caricature. One thing you usually don't see in a Western is a cowardly sheriff who reverses himself to take on the villain bunch, so the character of Sheriff Deets was portrayed in fine stead by Newell Alexander, until he got his off-screen sendoff by McCain. The story even has a whore with a heart of gold, as Cassie May (Allison Gordon) warms up to Cole Brandt (Andrew W. Walker), a key factor in the gunslinger's decision to turn around after heading out of town on his singular mission to find the outlaws who killed his family five years prior. The stagecoach getaway was something I hadn't seen before, and though you knew it was a set up for the finale, the way this ended took some of the glory away from Brandt when Sheriff's Deputy Newman Hicks (Paul McCarthy-Boyington) put an end to McCain's reign of terror. As one of the outlaw gang, I really wanted to see how Dulce would have been dealt with in a final showdown, but it became a moot point when that stick of dynamite temporarily knocked the baddies down outside the Majestic. Since McCain survived that blast, I'm sure Dulce did too, but I sure would have liked to see her botoxed lips one last time as she met her Maker.