Cole Younger & The Black Train (2012)

This is part of a series of bad westerns following in the footsteps of "A Cold Day in Hell," and "All Hell Broke Loose". Michael Madsen appears more on the cover than he does in the film. This is the story of Cole Younger (Cody McCarver) and how the Pinkerton agency tracked him down. The story comes from Frank James (Braxton Williams) telling the real story to a reporter Mr. Cummings (Nick Smith). The saga consists mostly of things Frank wouldn't know such as the inner workings of the Pinkerton Agency and their recruiting, but I was willing to give them that.Like the other films, the camera has a hard time being on the face of the person doing the talking. The lines were delivered in stereotypical western monotone, even the women simply read lines. The black train was owned by Emmet Black (Jerry Chesser) who drove the train up and down any track at will. It appeared to have been a symbol for death or the Grim Reaper, although it was haphazardly integrated into the plot. The movie attempts to be humorous by adding characters like Crazy Pa (Richard Kinsey) a man who once ate his horse and Shotgun (Ronald Bumgardner) a man who owns a shotgun pistol. Even Taylor-Grace Davis who played Alice was laughably bad.The film might be fun to watch because it is bad, although lacks some of the camp value of previous productions. If you thought "A Cold Day in Hell", and "All Hell Broke Loose" were good, then this film shouldn't bother you.PARENTAL GUIDE: No F-bombs, sex, nudity or acting. Uses "A" word and makes references to a shotgun up the butt.

This is essentially a Western Film as imagined by a child whose only exposure to Western's is via old public domain cartoons and whose budget consists of the contents of their piggy bank. If "so bad it's good" is a thing, then this film is a definite contender for best worst film ever made. It's not just the "funded by sales at the lemonade stand" budget, but the combination of that with absurdly melodramatic and pretentious nonsense about a personified death figure, and the profound depth of ineptitude displayed by this film's director, that really makes this turd "shine." There's a character that keeps getting shot without reacting, until the movie suddenly realizes he should be dead and everyone shoots him at once about a hundred times, a scene where a character gets shot point-blank in the stomach, with a rifle, and is fixed up, without a scratch, in five minutes, by the miracle of bed-sheets and boiled water, a guy bites down on a cherry tomato for "blood" effects, practically every interior location is the same sparse barn with a new sign telling you where they're supposed to be now, almost every outdoor location is the same field, money is shown as white sack cloths with dollar signs on them, and the one moment of CGI in the film has painfully obvious glitches, and that's just what I can recall off the top of my head, years after watching this!

...as a drinking game. Seriously: some buddies and I were talking about the worst movies ever made and it just sort of grew from there. Dead simple: every time there's a blatantly obvious mistake in the filming or plot, pause it and everyone drinks. If there's disagreement, only the one who pointed it out drinks. We've played it twice now...and only made it about halfway through the movie.Other than that, it's not worth the bandwidth....seriously. My grandma taught to say something nice or not say anything at all, so...it left me 'speechless'. It also left me glad to have this bit of roadkill coyote fading into the rearview behind me. Meep, meep.

The one and only reason I watched this film was because Michael Madsen was in it, and I am a loyal fan to him, I knew that this was going to be awful as its the same director that did A COLD DAY IN HELL, also starring Madsen. I understand there is only so much you can do with a small budget, but come on please, I made a film last year for $1000 that was 10 times the quality of this, and Im still struggling to get noticed, this is insane, For the love of god when people in this movie get shot, where is the blood?? if you cant afford squibs, at least put blood in the area the person was suppose to have been shot, how hard is that. Please for the love of god Mr. Madsen keep away from this. You are so much better, you are the king in my book. But this is below you.