Goodnight for Justice: A Femme Fatale Rides Into Town

The Hon. John Goodnight is not exactly the Judge Dredd of the old west, but his skill with a sidearm can often cut down on the paperwork.  Nonetheless, he tries to dispense justice in accordance with the law, even if it is of a frontier variety.  This is both frustrating and endearing to a lady confidence artist on the run from a former mark in Goodnight for Justice: Queen of Hearts (promo here), which airs on the Hallmark Movie Channel this Saturday.

Goodnight has established a sterling reputation as a western circuit court judge, but it is a solitary life on the road.  Occupational hazards come with the job, but Goodnight can take care of himself.  He also starts taking care of Ms. Lucy Truffaut when her stage coach is attacked by Col. Cyril Knox (ret.) and his henchmen.  Actually, the stage was hired by the Pinkerton taking Ms. Truffaut to justice, but he will not live long enough to tell Goodnight that.  Instead, she will convince him she is an heiress pursued by would be kidnappers.  Her smooth talking charm and low cut dress are quite convincing, but it is only a matter of time before her story craters.  Knox is not giving up either, even if Goodnight is a judge.

It is always nice to see a new western produced for a major media outlet.  That said, Queen’s first two acts are sort of pokey and it features some of the dullest card games you will ever see on TV.  On the plus side, Luke Perry is clearly comfortable with his western franchise hero and he develops some nicely suggestive chemistry with Katharine Isabelle’s Truffaut.  Of course, this being Hallmark, it takes him a good long time to get any sugar out the deal.

Ricky Schroder (evidently he stopped fighting the “y”) wears the black hat quite well as Col. Knox, brooding and glowering with NYPD Blue intensity.  He has a good western look, which ought to serve him well in Wild Hearts, an upcoming contemporary western family drama he also directed and co-wrote for Hallmark (but sounds far too wholesome for any of us miscreants).

The annual GFJ tele-films are based on a solid premise, but Queen is a bit too jokey at times.  Director Martin Wood also could have cranked up the shootouts a tad.  At least there’s cleavage.  Recommended for western fans in need of a fix (and there are a lot of them out there) as well as fans of Isabelle (who is indeed a dynamic presence), Goodnight for Justice: Queen of Hearts premieres on the Hallmark Movie Channel this Saturday (1/26).

Hannah’s Law: She Brings ‘em in Alive, Mostly

As a principled lawman, Wyatt Earp respects a bounty hunter like Hannah Beaumont, who always brings her fugitives in alive, rather than dead.  A scoundrel like Doc Holliday can also appreciate Beaumont, because she’s a woman.  Before the O.K. Corral, they will all meet up in Dodge for some frontier justice in Hannah’s Law (promo here), a Hallmark Movie Channel original feature, premiering this Saturday.

As a girl, Beaumont witnessed Frank McMurphy’s gang kill her family in cold blood, unbeknownst to them.  She became a bounty hunter to track down every last man.  Refusing to become a murderer as well, she forces them to face justice.  At least that had been the plan.  It seems McMurphy has gotten wind of her.  Rounding up a new gang of cutthroats, McMurphy is headed to Dodge and Hell is riding with them.

The “Earp & Holliday: the early years” concept is reasonably fresh and showing it from a woman’s perspective is a nice Hallmark-friendly twist.  However, Law is not particularly ambitious by western genre standards, essentially knocking down the revenge dominos as soon as it sets them up.  Beaumont could also use a few humanizing flaws, besides hooking up with a certain consumptive dentist.  Not only does she refrain from killing, Beaumont always donates her bounties to the local orphanage.  Indeed, she is quite modern in her thinking for the 1870’s.  Two of her nearest and dearest friends are African American: her mentor, Isom Dart, and her BFF, Stagecoach Annie.  She even marks off all the voluntary donations on her income tax—at least she probably would have, if there had been one at the time.

Sara (Vampire Diaries) Canning is perfectly presentable as Beaumont, but she never really conveys much righteous intensity.  While darker days are in store for his character, Greyston Holt brings a likability and sense of integrity to Earp that works well enough for television.  Danny Glover also plays off his “too old for this . . .” persona quite effectively as Dart.  However, Kimberly Elise’s Stagecoach Annie (conveniently, her job is part of her name) is annoyingly codependent on Beaumont.   In contrast, Ryan Kennedy seems to be having great fun as Holliday, which is exactly how the part is traditionally played.

While not redefining the genre, Law screenwriter-co-executive producer John Fasano has the good sense to end it with a shootout.  Frankly, this is a convention that never gets old and director Rachel Talay stages it rather well.  While she has an extensive television resume, Talay’s early directorial credits include Tank Girl and Freddy’s Dead: the Final Nightmare, two features you are not likely to be thinking of while watching Law.

Hannah’s Law is a serviceable western overall, with a few notable dramatic moments from the supporting cast and some decent action sequences.  Still, it is kind of nice to see an original western on television and the Hallmark Movie Channel deserves some credit for programming them semi-regularly, even before the breakout success of AMC’s Hell on Wheels.  For western diehards, it should provide an okay sagebrush fix when it airs this Saturday night (6/9) on the Hallmark Movie Channel.

Depression Western: The Wild Girl

Even during the Great Depression, white America was irredeemable. Such seems to be the message of the latest remake of Dances with Wolves. Based on the novel by Jim Fergus (best known for One Thousand White Women), the Hallmark Movie Channel original The Wild Girl (trailer here) offers respectable production values and plenty of guilt to those tuning in for its premiere this coming Saturday night.

It is 1932, and the upper classes are pulling together. The son of a wealthy Mexican rancher has been kidnapped by a renegade band of Apaches and the idiot sons of America’s richest families have volunteered for the rescue mission. Of course, the hunting and fishing in the Sierra Madres is hard to beat. Not interested in phony heroics, wastrel Tolley Phillips’s one virtue is his lack of pretense. However, he is convinced by Ned Giles, an aspiring photo-journalist working as a waiter in his father’s private club, to sign up for the fool’s errand and to take him along as his valet.

As soon as he arrives, Giles accepts a freelance offer, ditching the good-sported Phillips. No longer employer and employee, they find themselves pseudo-rivals for the attentions of Margaret Hawkins, an anthropologist in training attached to the mission. Naturally, the Americans and Mexicans are dead set on some killing, so when Giles stumbles across a wounded Apache girl, Hawkins suggests offering to trade her for the boy, in an attempt to avoid bloodshed. Together with Tolley, his new gentleman’s gentleman, a former Apache Army scout and his resentful son, they head off a step ahead of the vigilante posse.

Wild ups the ante on Dances by adding class based resentment to its white racial guilt. However, the Depression era details give some film some character, setting it apart from other revisionist westerns. In fact, it looks quite well produced by non-premium cable standards and moves along at a decent clip.

Though he probably would have been voted least likely to succeed after 90210, Brian Austin Green follows up his surprisingly cool turn on The Sarah Connor Chronicles with reasonably likable work as Giles. Kathleen Munroe is also quite an engaging rooting interest as the determined Hawkins. As usual, Graham Greene projects wounded nobility as the former scout, while the rest of the cast is largely handcuffed by their clichéd characters.

While it might constitute damning with faint praise, Wild is at least watchable. Though the constant politically correct recriminations get tiresome, it features some nice performances along the way. Wild airs on the Hallmark Movie Channel this Saturday (4/24).