Shadow on the Mesa (2013)

A movie is a collaboration of many technicians and artists working together to involve the viewer in the story the movie portrays. This collaboration failed because there was a strange paucity of motive or plot to the final conflict between the Dowdy's and the Eastman's. The movie that I was able to watch was, as an earlier viewer said, a collection of scenes cobbled together with little rhyme or reason for the characters actions. A their best they managed to be in chronological order. Mr. Martin, the writer, did manage some smooth and believable dialog, but without a plot or believable subplots the movies is just a hash or melange of scenes that fall apart without any believable motivation for characters actions or plot for the scenes to fit in. Maybe he can improve, since this was his first effort, but he need to learn a lot about structure and plot of a movie or play. The director, Mr. Cass, has directed a pretty good western in the past, "The Johnson County War." However, he must share in the lack of plot portrayed in the final film. The credits list a "Bronze Wrangler" Western Heritage Award,but it must have benefited from a lack of competition. If you don't expect a full story and can settle for watching the good scenes with some familiar television genre actors; and reading a book or newspaper until the next good scene then this will fill the bill. The sets, settings, costumes and actors were fairly good with a few inevitable anachronisms and contradictions, The western movie genre lost a lot of expertise in western period costumes and props with the death of the old studios systems.

"If I get a hint that he had something to do with mom's death I will kill him." After Wes (Brown) returns home he is told of his mother's death. After being told of who may be behind it he rides off for revenge. At this point I could almost just write one blanket review for every western that comes out and just change the movie titles. LONG GONE are the days of John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, and even at this point Kevin Costner westerns. I'm not sure what happened but somewhere along the way the genre got relegated to made-for-TV movies on the Hallmark channel. I'm not saying that Hallmark movies are a bad thing but when you want to see a western a little roughness is needed in them. The swagger of John Wayne is replaced by the pretty boy look. The intensity of Eastwood is replaced with soft emotion laden characters that don't seem to fit in the west. If you want to get your wife or girlfriend to watch a western with you then show her the new ones. If you want to show her what a real western should be show her anything by John Wayne. Overall, another dagger in the genre that used to be known as western. Apparently all it takes to be a western now is people in cowboy hats riding horses. I give it a C.

Some has been actors and some you hope you'll never see again run around in some kind of western with no story or entertainment value what so ever - if you like to watch good movies.But it is a dream come true if you are a hair dresser.For some reason in this western people have always the best styled hair and make up.Even after having been in the wild outdoors or after a shoot out.I guess the makers of this crap think that people from that time period only left the house perfectly styled and groomed.It's like watching project runaway - the western edition.Every minute I expected that crazy Heidi Klum to show up saying "Love your style honey when you get on that horse"Well, what would you expect from Hallmark - the zero talent movie factory?Skip this disaster and save your brain.

First off, I love Kevin Sorbo. I love westerns. And I really liked his previous western, which I believe was also on the Hallmark channel. This movie had several problems that kept me from enjoying it: 1) The music and dialogue tracks were very poorly balanced. The music was overpowering and the dialogue was a little hard to hear many times.2) The music in general was very generic, and the background music seemed to be almost the same, scene after scene. And what's worse is the music NEVER stops for more than a few seconds at a time. LITERALLY. It's in your face the whole movie, and I found it cloying and grating on my nerves.3) Kevin Sorbo has a secondary role in this, and isn't in it nearly as much as I expected.4) The main character carried the quiet, mysterious stranger type a little far, and it seemed pretty cheesy to me.And just overall the movie didn't flow very well. It just kind of seemed like a bunch of scenes cobbled together. It never really pulled me in. I hope he does another western more similar to his previous one, but this one I could've done without.