FILM REVIEW OF ''THE WAR WAGON'' (1967)

 "Return of the Seven" director Burt Kennedy helmed the most imaginative John Wayne western of the 1960s with "The War Wagon." This improbable but entertaining horse opera co-starred a trim Kirk Douglas at his acrobatic best as well as Howard Keel, Bruce Cabot, and Robert Walker Jr. Novelist Claire Huffaker adapted the screenplay from his novel and remains faithful to it for the most part. Huffaker penned paperback westerns so he was no stranger to the genre. He later wrote "The Deserter," "The Valdez Horses," "100 Rifles," "The Hellfighters," "The Comancheros," and "Tarzan and the Valley of Gold." Of course, a seasoned western movie scenarist like Burt Kennedy, whose writing credits include four Randolph Scott westerns "Seven Men from Now," "The Tall T," "Comanche Station," and "Ride Lonesome," brought his sensibility to the subject matter. Kennedy has said that he lightened up Huffaker's dark script. Remember, Kennedy later helmed the classic James Garner western comedy "Support Your Local Sheriff" and its lesser sequel "Support Your Local Gunfighter."  One of the weapons that all Spaghetti westerns featured prominently was the Gatling Gun, and Kennedy makes good use of a Gatling gun.

In "The War Wagon" (***1/2 out of ****), Taw Jackson (John Wayne) rides into Emmett, New Mexico, to report to Sheriff Strike. Initially, Strike (Terry Wilson of "Westworld") is surprised by Taw's arrival and believes that he has broken out of prison. No, Taw explains that he behaved himself so well for three years that he received a pardon with the stipulation that he check in every Monday with the local authority. Deputy Hoag (Gene Evans of "Fixed Bayonets!") observes critically, "Maybe prison took some of the starch out of you." Taw leaves the jail and finds Wes Fletcher (Keenan Wynn of "Point Blank") stealing sugar from Pierce and forces him to put it back. Wes plans to participate in a robbery that Taw has put together. Wes is a harsh, abrasive old man that drives a supply wagon for Pierce and has a beautiful young wife, Felicia (Ann McCrea of "River of No Return"), that he bought for $20 and a horse from her poor parents. Our protagonist sets out to find a flamboyant, temperamental gunfighter named Lomax (Kirk Douglas of "Seven Days in May") because he can crack safes and he is extremely handy with a six-gun. Taw finds him easily enough, but Lomax holds a grudge against him. "You're the only man I ever shot," he snarls with venom, "didn't kill."  We learn from Lomax that Frank Pierce paid him to kill Taw Jackson. "Sure, so he (Pierce) could legally steal your land once he found gold on it. You were a hard-working rancher defending your property yet it was you who got shot, framed, and sent to jail." Taw shares his far-fetched plan with Lomax to rob Pierce. Of course, Lomax points out Pierce transports his gold dust 43 miles between Emmett and the railhead at El Paso in an iron-plated stagecoach and with plans to add a rapid-firing Gatling gun to the roof. Taw knows that they will be pitted against 28 horsemen each armed with Henry repeating rifles, two Colt .45 revolvers, and 200 rounds of ammunition. Five men including Pierce ride in the armor-plated coach. Taw explains, however, that he has assembled five men to pull the job off... Lomax will handle the gunplay and the safe cracking. Billy Hyatt (Robert Walker Jr. of "Young Bill Young") is a teenage alcoholic but an expert with explosives. Levi Walking Bear (Howard Keel of "Kismet") will recruit an army of Native Americans to serve as their cavalry, while Wes Fletcher will be in charge of concealing the loot for six months after the robbery. Predictably, Lomax objects to Taw's grand scheme, despite the $100-thousand pay per man, because of the danger. Taw sweetens the pot. Pierce plans to haul a half-million dollars in gold dust in four days as soon as he installs the Gatling gun.

Meanwhile, when Frank Pierce (Bruce Cabot of "King Kong") learns about Taw being in town, he summons two gunmen, Hammond (Bruce Dern of "The Cowboys") and Brown (Chuck Robertson of "McLintock!"), and orders them to find Lomax. Pierce is prepared to pay Lomax up to $10-thousand for him to kill Taw. Another example of Kennedy's sense of humor occurs when Hammond and Brown find Lomax, discover that Taw is with Lomax, and try to blast them on their own. Our heroes have no trouble killing them. "Might fell first," Lomax chides Taw. "Mine was taller," Taw retorts. Our heroes rescue Levi Walking Bear from an evil band of Mexican outlaws, steal nitroglycerin from Pierce's own supplies and set about arranging their scheme to take the war wagon. At the same time, the conspirators don't like each other. (Kennedy's gunmen in "Return of the Seven" didn't get along with each other either.) Lomax detests Billy because he doesn't trust a drunkard handling explosives and Wes hates Billy because he mistakes Felicia as Wes' daughter not his wife.

The success of "The War Wagon" hinges largely on Kennedy's helming as well as his abundant sense of humor. He covers all bases in this western in 101 minutes without wearing out his welcome. There's a funny barroom brawl and the actual robbery of the war wagon is exciting stuff. The only flaw in this wonderful western adventure is the ending. The heroes are punished as if they were villains. They wind up with only a fifth of the loot. The John Wayne character here is one of the few who was convicted of a crime and had to do the time. A corrupt society enables Pierce to gain control of Taw's land and the fortune underneath it and there is no hope that Taw will ever get his ranch back or clear his name. These are events that would have been reckoned with in his Lone Star B-movie westerns. "The War Wagon" is a postmodern oater because everything is flipped upside down. Just for the record, too, the villains kill themselves so that our heroes need not dirty their hands. 

FILM REVIEW OF ''ANY GUN CAN PLAY'' (Italian/Spanish-1967)

After Sergio Leone's "Fistful of Dollars" became a surprise hit in Europe in the early 1960s, producers started shooting what came to be called 'Spaghetti westerns' by the dozens. This entertaining, low-budget, Euro-western appeared along about the time of Leone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." The hero in "Any Gun Can Play" is a bounty hunter like the Clint Eastwood protagonist in "Fistful of Dollars" and "For A Few Dollars More." The hero here is modeled on him. He sports a beard, smokes, and wears a poncho. "Any Gun Can Play" opens with a scene that predates a similar one that Leone sought to lens for "Once Upon A Time in the West," but he couldn't persuade Clint Eastwood to appear in it. Three tough-looking gunslingers ride into a western town. One is dressed like Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name character in a poncho. Another resembles Lee Van Cleef's Colonel Douglas Mortimer from "For A Few Dollars More," and the third is garbed like Franco Nero's "Django," except he rides a horse instead of hauls a coffin around behind him with a machine gun in it. Our hero confronts them in Main Street behind a wagon loaded with three caskets. "Any Gun Can Play" is a spaghetti western with an in-joke on spaghetti westerns since the hero here wipes out all the three killers. Aside from a surfeit of comedy, especially in the acrobatic fight sequences, Enzo G. Castellari's lightweight western qualifies as an above-average oater. The cast is excellent. George Hilton starred in dozens of Italian westerns and Gilbert Roland and Edd Byrnes made their share.

The notorious Mexican outlaw Montero (Gilbert Roland of "Barbarosa") and his gang of trigger-happy pistoleros rob an army train transporting $300-thousand dollars in gold coins across the frontier. Director Enzo G. Castellari of "Inglorious Bastards" stages the hold-up from a variety of camera angles that thrusts us into the forefront of the fracas. The bandits seize the locomotive along with the coach carrying the gold and separate it from the rest of the train that houses the U.S. Cavalry. Actually, during the initial stop to remove a telegraph pole across the rails, Clayton behaves suspiciously near the gold car. While Montero and his gunmen keep the Cavalry pinned down, Pajondo (Pedro Sanchez of "Sabata") commandeers the locomotive, kills the engineer and his crew and trundles it away, leaving the other pistoleros behind to fend for themselves. Essentially, Pajondo double-crosses Montero and steals the gold for himself. Later, Montero catches up with Pajondo at the Rio Grande. Before the bandit can reveal the whereabouts of the loot to Montero, however, a Cavalry sergeant shoots Pajondo dead. Before he dies, Pajondo tells Montero about a medallion that serves as a clue about where he stashed the treasure. The irate Cavalry captain (Ivano Staccioli of "Commandos") imprisons Montero, but he cannot loosen the bandit's tongue even after he wields his whip on him. Infuriated by Montero's reticence, the captain threatens to have the Mexican shot if he doesn't spill his guts.

Meanwhile, the jailers permit a priest speak to Montero, but the priest really isn't a priest. The six-gun toting Stranger (George Hilton of "The Ruthless Four") masquerades as a man of the cloth and has a conversation with the bandit chieftain. Later, he rescues Montero from a firing squad. Unfortunately, before Montero is rescued, Clayton (Edd Byrnes of TV's "77 Sunset Strip") takes the medallion away from Montero and keeps it for himself. Clayton is the bank representative that was sent to safeguard the gold. He is horrified that the Captain wants to shoot Montero. Clayton's career at the bank hinges on his ability to recover the gold. The Stranger stages a fire at the fort to distract the firing squad, and Montero takes the Captain as hostage and tries to escape, but the Stranger shoots him off the horse. Before the authorities can verify that Montero is dead, the Stranger claims the body for the handsome reward he will receive and he rides out with the Captain's gracious thanks. No sooner have they left the fort than Montero's men show up to rescue him from the Stranger. From this point on, the Stranger, Montero, and Clayton forge short-lived alliances among each other as they search for the gold. Castellari and scenarist Tito Carpi, who has penned a number of spaghetti westerns such as "A Few Dollars For Django" and another Castellari oater "Seven Winchesters for a Massacre," rely on clever humor and surprise reversals to keep the action fresh and fast-paced. One cool scene has Clayton seated at a table about to eat his meal when he hears some suspicious sounds from behind him. Clayton pours his drink on the table and sees the gunmen behind him with holstered six-guns.

"Any Gun Can Play" (*** out of ****) lives up to its title. In fact, many guns do play, and at least twenty or more corpses pile up before fade-out. This western isn't so much a parody as it is a knock-off of Sergio Leone's "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Mind you, bad guys and good guys fall as frequently as ten-pins in a bowling alley, but their deaths aren't depicted in the brutal fashion of a Leone western. "Any Gun Can Play" doesn't take itself as seriously as the aforementioned Leone masterpiece. The three leads jockey back and forth for supremacy. Each has a piece of the puzzle that will lead them to the treasure, but they refuse to share their information until the shoot'em up finale. Lenser Giovanni Bergamini's colorful widescreen photography is spectacular, especially the opening shots of the train chuffing along railway tracks with distant mountain peaks rearing up dramatically in the background. Another great shot occurs when Montero tests the Stranger's imperturbable calm. This scene happens after the Stranger has rescued Montero and the Mexican's minions arrive to save their chieftain's bacon. Confiscating the Stranger's six-gun, Montero takes aim at the poncho-clad tough guy and empties the revolver, placing his well-aimed bullets harmlessly in and around the unflinching gunslinger. Bergamini, who photographed Castellari's World War II thriller "Inglorious Bastards," frames the scene with the Stranger in the background and his pistol in Montero's hand in the foreground for a pleasing, three-dimensional style shot. Meanwhile, Francesco De Masi's lively orchestral soundtrack is as memorable for its own idiosyncratic melodies as Ennio Morricone's soundtracks were for the Leone westerns. The opening song is reminiscent of a 1950's Hollywood western with its catchy lyrics and guitar riffs. Although it isn't a major spaghetti western, "Any Gun Can Play" is always entertaining nonsense with interesting plot twists and good performances, especially the indefatigable Gilbert Roland who was 62 years old at the time!

FILM REVIEW OF ''STEP UP'' (2006)

"27 Dresses" director Anne Fletcher's urban dance musical "Step Up" (**1/2 out of ****) qualifies as a predictable but entertaining teen movie about the society's haves and have-not's and the peculiar circumstances that bring them together. Essentially, "Step Up" resembles "Save the Last Dance for Me" but with the roles reversed and the setting modified. Jenna Dewan of "Take the Lead" plays the heroine—Nora Clark—who lives to dance and can imagine nothing else but dancing in her life. Her mom worries about her daughter and her future and pushes her to think about college rather than getting a job as a professional dancer. Nora is the best ballerina at the Maryland School of the Arts, and she cherishes the memory of her late father who supported her dancing aspirations with unconditional love. Vanilla Ice look-alike Channing Tatum of "Havoc" plays the hero--Tyler Gage—a "Rocky" type character. When underachiever Tyler isn't displaying his superlative street dancing moves, he hangs out with two African-American friends—Mac Carter (Damaine Radcliff of "Glory Road") and Mac's impetuous little brother Skinny (newcomer De'Shawn Washington)—and they steal cars for local chop-shop gangster Omar (Hip-Hop Musician Heavy D of "Dallas 362") who loves to throw parties.

Tyler and Nora hail from completely different backgrounds. She lives in the lap of luxury with her single mom, and Tyler lives with a foster family. She attends high school at the Maryland School of the Arts, and he bides time at a local high school. One night after they provide Omar with another hot vehicle, Tyler, Mac, and Skinny are playing around throwing bottles at each other when one of the bottles smashes a window in the MSA building. Inquisitive as they are, this happy-go-luck trio enters the edifice through the broken window and trash an auditorium. In the middle of their vandalism, a security guard appears and manages to tackle Tyler while Mac and Skinny beat it for parts unknown. The judge sentences Tyler to 200 hours of community service that our hero must serve at MSA and MSA director Gordon (Rachel Griffiths of "Ned Kelly") tells him that his vandalism has cost the school one scholarship for a student. Tyler winds up performing custodial duties everyday after he gets out of school. One day he spots pretty Nora in her dance class and she reciprocates his look of interest with one of her own. Currently, Nora is hard at work on a dance routine with the help of her boyfriend Brett Dolan (Josh Henderson of "Broken Bridges") who is providing the music. Her dance number will appear in the showcase at the end of the semester that prospective dance employers will watch, so a lot is riding on her search for music and choreography. Things turn sour for Nora when her dance partner—Colin (newcomer Jamie Scott)—injures his leg. Nora cannot find anybody who can dance with her and hold her up above their head as a part of the dance routine. One day Nora spots Tyler demonstrating some of his gyrating hip movements. Reluctantly, she asks Gordon if she can use Tyler and Gordon gives them her approval. Nora confides in Tyler that she has a great idea for a dance routine but it requires more dancers. When they practice next, Tyler shows up with a dozen dancers from MSA. Apparently, Nora doesn't know her way around MSA all that well and she lacks Tyler's charisma.

At this point, "Step Up" degenerates into the typical boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, but boy-wins-girl back. Tyler starts off as a jerk but over the course of the movie his behavior ameliorates. Naturally, Mac and Skinny don't have a clue about what Tyler has gotten himself into, but what they do know is that he has been shunning them to perform his community service and rehearse with Nora. Along the way, more trouble occurs when Skinny is shot by a gangsta for stealing the gunman's vehicle. The usual funeral occurs and Tyler realizes now where his priorities lay. They go on stage and perform the dance routine with Nora's mom in the audience and Mac watching his boy do his thing. Predictably, Nora's prayers are answered and she realizes her dreams. When the dance employers ask about Tyler, director Gordon chimes in that he is a transfer student.

The dancing is good enough and the characters of Tyler and Nora as star-crossed lovers is easy to handle. The opposites that attract each other has been done a million times, but the convention still packs a punch and the two have chemistry. The things that drag down "Step Up" are the ghetto, inner city stuff with Skinny getting a cap popped in him off-screen. Basically, scenarists Duane Adler of "Save the Last Dance for Me" and "Dexter" scribe Melissa Rosenberg preserve all of the dance and romantic love stories clichés and Fletcher shuffles it all together for a feel-good 103 minute melodrama. Everything, by the way, takes place in Baltimore and the filmmakers shot every frame on location in Baltimore. Despite the familiarity of the material, Fletcher brings a raw energy and enough momentum to make it entertaining enough.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE SPECIALIST'' (1975)

Adam West of TV's "Batman" fame stars in "The Specialist" (* out of ****), a bland inconsequential potboiler about inappropriate conduct between a juror and a defense counsel. He's cast as attorney Jerry Bounds, counsel for the defense in a case about a water company, where opposing counsel Pike Smith (veteran western character actor John Anderson of "Young Billy Young") is determined to have him disbarred from the trial.

Everything starts when Smith is sacked from his job at the water company, and he wants back on the board. When the head of the water company, Arthur Farley(Chuck Boyd of "Predator 2") refuses to reinstate him, Smith hires sleazy, low-life private investigator Alec Sharkey (film director Howard Avedis masquerading as Russell Schmidt) who enlists the aid of a beautiful woman for $5-thousand to seduce Bounds and get a mistrial declared in the case. Blond Ahna Capri, a veteran TV actress that appeared in virtually every memorable 1960s' TV series from "The Wild Wild West" to "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." to "It Takes a Thief," doesn't mind displaying her ample buxom charms as Londa Weyth. People refer to her as "The Specialist" because sex is her specialty,and she sets to work to seduce Bounds. Smith arranges for Londa to serve as a juror in the case. Meanwhile,Bounds repeatedly warns her that their flirtatious affair could ruin his career. Poor Jerry Bounds is hopelessly seduced by her, and Sharkey snaps several incriminating photos of the two cavorting near a reservoir while the judge and a bailiff watch them. Bailiff Humbolt is played by none other than Alvy Moore of TV's "Green Acres" where he played Hank Kimball. Not content with having Bounds taken off the case, Smith goes even further and tries to get Bounds disbarred. Meanwhile, Bounds' wife Elizabeth (Avedis' wife Marlene Schmidt of "They're Playing with Fire") learns that Londa moved into a house a week before the trial and was seen in public with Pike Smith's son Hardin (Harvey Jason of "Too Late the Hero"), who etches nude pictures of sexy women. This is the first surprise in this tame little thriller; the wife would rather stand by her erring husband in this predicament than divorce him. Elizabeth decides to find out how Londa became juror number six in so short a time, while Bounds confronts Londa in San Francisco with a subpoena. Sharkey eavesdrops on their conversation and contacts Pike Smith; Sharkey hits Smith up for $20-thousand, so that Londa and he can clear out of the country. At the same, Smith is going to send his artist son Howard to England, because the Bounds know about his involvement in the affair. Eventually, Sharkey catches up with Smith, and they struggle in Smith's basement where the armed Sharkey tries to pick up his blackmail money. Incredibly, Sharkey—who has a revolver on him at the time—doesn't shoot Smith when he has the opportunity. Smith has Sharkey jammed in the doors of his safe room while the two struggle. Sharkey is a prime example of a stupid villain. He could have shot Smith, but he is too brainless take advantage of his one chance. The ultimate injustice comes when the Bar Association disbars Bounds despite the death of Sharkey. In the last scene, misguided, idiotic hero Jerry Bounds pursues Pike Smith outside against his wife's advice and guns him down in broad daylight with a revolver. Fade out.

Director Howard Avedis is a fan of the slow zoom out to reveal, a technique that most filmmakers embraced during the 1960s. Aside from one or two locations, everything appears to have been lensed in cramped hotel rooms. The pacing is comatose, and the music is light but cheerful. West, Anderson, and Moore are the three biggest names in this incoherent mishmash. The only thing that stands out in this movie is that the hero is doomed by his own incompetence from the start; he repeatedly warns the femme fatale that he could lose his career as a lawyer. Nevertheless, Jerry Bounds cheats on his wife and pays the consequences. Of course, we expect that the hero will clear his name and his honor, but he does neither and that makes this half-witted Crown International release look truly dim-witted and anti-climactic.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE WALKING HILLS'' (1949)

"Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" director John Sturges made his first foray into the western movie genre with this modern day western hybrid about a back room poker game that evolves into a feverish search for lost treasure in the desert. Lean, mean Randolph Scott heads up a sturdy, first-class cast in this atmospheric outdoors yarn that features John Ireland, William Bishop, Edgar Buchanan, Ella Raines, Arthur Kennedy, Russell Collins, and Jerome Courtland. Comparisons between "The Walking Hills" (*** out of ****) and John Huston's timeless classic "The Treasure of Sierra Madre" are inevitable, but the two movies differ drastically. Drawing comparisons between "The Walking Hills" and S. Sylvan Simon's "Lust for Gold" (1949) with Glenn Ford and Ida Lupino is more appropriate. Both films went into release in 1949, but "The Walking Hills" came out in March while "Lust for Gold" premiered in June. Interestingly, Edgar Buchanan appeared in both releases. Western novelist Alan Le May, who wrote both "The Searchers" and "The Unforgiven," penned the screenplay with one-time only scenarist Virginia Roddick providing additional dialogue.

"The Walking Hills" opens with a foreword: "A border town—like so many in the Southwest it's split in two by the international line and has two names. Calexico in America and Mexicali on the Mexican side." In the first ten minutes of this concise little epic, Sturges and Le May introduce us to the chief characters and the premise. Dave Wilson (William Bishop of "Coroner Creek") appears on the streets of Mexicali dressed handsomely in a coat, trousers, and a Stetson. He is minding his own business as he steps beneath the awning of a façade of businesses facing the street. He lingers in front of a hamburger joint where he spots Chris Jackson (Ella Raines of "Cry 'Havoc'") flipping burgers. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the Dave and Chris, two men watch them from across the street. The first one is a detective, Frazee (John Ireland of "Red River"), and the second one is King (Houseley Stevenson of "Four Faces West"). Later, we learn that Dave is on the run as the result of a card game in a hotel room where a man died in a fight with Dave. Dave thought the man was drawing a pistol from his jacket. He struck the man. The man toppled out of his chair and fell on a beer bottle and the bottle punctured his heart. Gee, they must have had some pretty stout beer bottles back in 1949. Anyway, Dave has been on the lam and Frazee and King has been shadowing him since he left Denver. King fears that Dave will slip across the border before Frazee can buttonhole him, but Frazee isn't so sure that Dave is their prey. King argues that the look on Chris' face when she saw him convinced him that Dave was the guilty party.

Anyway, Dave wanders over to the Tequila Bar & Grill and spots a horse in a trailer and learns from the driver of the truck, Cleve (Charles Stevens of "Last Train from Gun Hill"), that the animal belongs to Jim Carey. Cleve explains that Jim is ". . . waiting for his mare to be cleared through quarantine." The barkeep tells Dave about a penny ante poker game in the back room. Dave enters the game as Willy (Edgar Buchanan of "Texas"), an unshaven prospector, observes that Jim Carey (Randolph Scott of "Comanche Station") dreams of breeding a winning race horse. Willy resumes telling a story about lost treasure when Dave sits down. "Like I was saying there was five wagon in that train and they headed right into them walking hills." We learn that the walking hills are sand dunes that provided a short cut through the desert. According to Willy, this happened about a 100 years ago and the wagon train disappeared forever and nobody with it was ever seen or heard from again. Willy elaborates that the wagon train made up a gold shipment coming out of Mexico loaded with upwards of $5-million dollars. Jim remarks that everybody knows about the lost wagon train.

A young, footloose cowboy, Johnny (Jerome Courtland of "Cripple Creek"), agrees with Willy that the walking hills pose a menace to anybody that dares to travel through them. Recently, he rode through them and his horse stumbled on a wagon wheel and threw him. Johnny observes that the wheel was a skinny, narrow wheel, not like the big-wheeled borax wagons or the wide-tired kind that are ideal for desert wayfaring. Silence hangs over the room and everybody exchanges glances. Frazee has joined them, and he asks Johnny if he could find his way back to where he fell. Initially, Johnny is puzzled, "Hey, what's the matter with you guys? Did I pull something?" Jim refuses to let anybody leave the room and Frazee makes the attendant Bibb (Russell Collins of "Bad Day at Black Rock") lock the door to the room. They decide to embark as a group to scour the desert where Johnny fell off his horse. They are paranoid that somebody will leak their discovery so they leave later that evening so as not to attract attention and ride into the desert. Temporarily, Frazee loses interest in his quarry, Dave, because a million dollars appeals more to his sense of greed.

The rest of "The Walking Hills" takes place in the desert amid the shifting sand dunes as the group of men struggle to locate the gold while weathering a vicious sandstorm and their own greed. Le May characterizes each individual so that they stand apart from each other. Scott plays his usual, tight-lipped hero. In the end, three of them die and Dave and Chris ride off. Although they don't find the $5 million in gold, our heroes locate a saddle bag with $10-thousand to split amongst themselves. There are a couple of surprises and Sturges maintains a modicum of tension throughout this suspenseful, 78-minute, black & white saga.

FILM REVIEW OF ''WAR'' (2007)

The Jet Li & Jason Statham urban crime thriller "War" (** out of ****) qualifies as one of their worst. Anybody that saw an earlier Jet Li actioneer—the futuristic science fiction epic "The One" (2001)--knows "War" represents the second time that these two action heroes have shared the screen. In "The One," Statham was confined to a secondary role. In "War," however, Statham shares top billing with 44-year old Jet Li, but the two are never on friendly terms. Instead, Statham wants to terminate Li with extreme prejudice while Li sets out to decimate the entire Japanese Yakuza as well the Chinese Triads in San Francisco. Unfortunately, this one-versus-the-other opus never generates enough heat between its trim but grim co-stars. Surprisingly, they aren't allowed to display their marital arts artistry until the end of the movie and the martial arts action scene itself is incredibly lackluster. Legendary marital arts choreographer Corey Yuen of "The Matrix" trilogy doesn't create any cool looking fights or any new gags that have made him one of the top stunt stagers in either Hollywood or Hong Kong. Most of the time in "War," Jet Li relies on an automatic pistol to gun down the opposition without an expression. Sometimes, he wields a mean razor-edged sword and slices off a head, but you rarely see him do anything equivalent to "Kiss of the Dragon," "Cradle 2 the Grave," or "The One." Similarly, Jason Statham—best known for his "Transporter" movies and "Crank"—doesn't rip, tear, or shed his apparel during the fights. Basically, if you march off to "War" thinking it is going to be the eighth wonder of the world where martial artistry is concerned, you are drastically deluding yourself and the end result of freshman director Philip G. Atwell's realistic but slam-bang crime melodrama will disappoint you. Nevertheless, Atwell delivers lots of savage action scenes with a high body count, but "War" never degenerates into a big, dumb action thriller with clever lines or flamboyant fighting.

Essentially, first-time scribes Lee Anthony Smith and Gregory J. Bradley have taken the classic Japanese sword-fighting saga "Yojimbo" (1961) with Toshiro Mufine {later remade as the Spaghetti western "A Fistful of Dollars" (1964) and even later as 1930s crime opus "Last Man Standing" (1996)in which the lone hero enters a town and wipes out two bloodthirsty crime families by swearing allegiance to each but betraying both until nobody is left alive. The biggest difference is that Smith & Bradley have grafted onto this simple but solid formula another time-honored formula about the two cops that have been partners until one dies at the hands of the mob and the other sets out to wreck vengeance on the evildoers that killed his friend. As "War" opens, we're introduced to two FBI agents in San Francisco. Tom Lone (Terry Chen of "I, Robot") and John Crawford (Jason Statham), are best buds that keep their eyes on the Japanese Yakuza gangsters and the deadly Chinese Triad mob. They are after a notorious assassin named Rogue that nobody can identify because he has plastic surgery every six months and then kills the surgeon to preserve his anonymity. Rogue has a nasty way of going his own way, but his trademark—like The Lone Ranger's silver bullets—is his titanium shell casings that he leaves behind at the scene of his crimes. Our heroes think that they have killed Rogue during the opening shoot-out, but he survives and wipes out Tom Lone and his wife Diane (Steph Song of "The Long Lunch") and their young daughter Amy (newcomer Annika Foo) at their cabin and torches the place. When Crawford hears about the massacre, the bodies have been burned beyond recognition, but he finds a shell casing at the scene that matches those that Rogue uses. Crawford swears vengeance and dedicates himself to killing Rogue. In the meantime, his obsession with Rogue undermines his marriage, and his wife Jenny (Andrea Roth of "Highwayman") divorces him, takes custody of their son Daniel (Nicholas Elia of "White Noise"), and moves out. Three years elapse with no sign of Rogue, and Crawford retrieves a titanium shell casing from the scene of a particularly violent crime scene. When we see Rogue this time, he isn't wearing a Phantom of the Opera mask. In fact, this is the first time that we see Jet Li and he is playing Rogue. He enters a Yakuza nightclub and slashes the throats of the thugs guarding the entrance to the boss's gambling den. The Yakuza boss sends his two Dobermans charging after Rogue. We hear one yelp in pain and the second comes back with an explosives device attached to its collar and blows up its owner. Suddenly, Yakuza killers as well as Triad gunmen start dropping like ten-pins and Rogue is the wrecking ball behind their murders.

Writers Smith & Bradley let this nonsense churn on for about an hour and a quarter and then they pull the biggest switcheroo in screen history that contradicts everything in my plot synopsis. Mind you, they drops hints along the way that something isn't right, but you'd have to have read the script to know how incredibly characters change in the last quarter hour. Freshman director Philip G. Atwell makes his directorial debut with "War," and he does just about everything to salvage this drivel. First, he pares down the action to essentials so the whole thing is over with in 103 minutes. Second, he stages the action as if he were shooting a Miami Vice episode. Everybody drives a cool car. Rogue tools around in a sleek, shiny Spyker C8 Spyder, a handmade all-aluminum convertible equipped with electrically operated single-hinge tilted doors, while Crawford steers a vintage Chevrolet Chevelle SS.

"War" barely makes the grade as a crime melodrama.

FILM REVIEW OF ''SING, COWBOY, SING'' (1937)

Tex Archer (Tex Ritter) and his bewhiskered pal Duke Evans (perennial western sidekick Al 'Fuzzy' St. John of "Gentlemen with Guns") are riding along the prairie peaceful like minding their own business when they hear gunfire galore. A gang of dastardly desperados led by trigger-happy Red Holman (Charles King of "Hearts of the West") descend on a procession of freight wagons that belong to George Summers (Jack C. Smith of "The Fighting Deputy") and his daughter Madge (Louise Stanley of "Yukon Flight") on their way to the town of Tonto. These heinous hombres wipe out everybody except Madge and set fire torch two wagons. By the time that Tex and Duke intervene, they are too tardy to make a difference. However, they do manage to scare off Red and his henchmen who flee the scene because they fear that they will be recognized. Madge finds her father shot dead and sprawled on the prairie. Meanwhile, Red and his gunmen hightail it back to town and report to their black-clad, mustached sidewinder of a boss Kalmus (Karl Hackett of "Wild Horse Rustlers") that they have carried out his orders and wiped out the Summers' outfit. Kalmus explains to Red that Summers brought catastrophe on his daughter and himself when he ignored Kalmus' warning. Kalmus gloats smugly over his good fortune. Avariciously, Kalmus assures Red, "Now, with that freight hauling franchise, we're in line to make some fancy money and we can run this community as we see fit." When Red gets word to Kalmus, the latter is smoking a cigarette and having a drink in a saloon owned by a quasi-Judge Roy Bean type called Judge Roy Dean (Robert MacKenzie of "Death Valley Outlaws') and Dean isn't exactly thrilled that Kalmus casually makes use of his saloon as headquarters for his nefarious exploits. "It's liable to get people to thinking things," Dean points out unhappily and refers to Summers and the freighting franchise. Kalmus tells the bartender/judge that everything is okay, but Dean frets that Kalmus' presence in his bar will lead people to think that Dean and Kalmus are friends. Imagine Kalmus' surprise when Tex and Duke show up driving one of the freight wagons with Madge. Initially, Kalmus thinks that Red has double-crossed him, but his top henchmen vows that he would never lie to him. Meanwhile, a grateful Madge thanks Tex for his help before she realizes that she doesn't know her hero's name. "You see," she explains, "I'm almost frantic. Dad put everything that he owned into that freight line and he had to make two trips a week to own the franchise." Tex decides on the spot to help out the damsel in distress. "We'll get a wagon over that line somehow tomorrow, "he cheers her up. When the town lawman, Marshall Tinker (Horace Murphy of "Ghost Valley Raiders") starts asking questions, Madge explains that a gang of ruffians waylaid her father and his men at Rock Pass. Everybody died but her. She points out that Tex and Duke rode to her rescue. When Tex offers to lead a posse to investigate the massacre, Tinker informs him that the town cannot afford to pay for a posse and that strangers shouldn't poke them noses into business that doesn't concern them.

Prolific director Robert N. Bradbury--with 125 low-budget, B-movie westerns to his credit--helmed this concise 59-minue black & white oater for the short-lived, poverty-row studio Grand National. Some of Bradbury's sagebrushers, among them "Westward Ho," "The Dawn Rider," and "Texas Terror," starred John Wayne. Bradbury also directed his son, cowboy star Bob Steele in several horse operas. Tex Ritter warbles about four or five songs, but he wears outfits considerably less ostentatious than Gene Autry. Inevitably, Tex and Red tangle when Red tries to knife Tex in his sleep. Everybody downstairs in the saloon hears a gun discharge and Kalmus rushes to investigate. At first, Kalmus believes that he can railroad Tex for Red's death, but Duke discovers that Red is only wounded—not dead. When Duke escorts Red into the courtroom at gunpoint, Kalmus has one of his assassins kill his second-in-command before the man can reveal the villain's evil deeds. Kalmus convinces Judge Dean that Tex may have had a hand in the massacre. Despite incredible odds and a stacked deck against them, Tex and Duke save Madge's freight line and Kalmus bites the dust. Before Kalmus dies in Tax's arms, he observes,"I knew the first time that I saw you, you'd be tough to beat. You win."

"Sing, Cowboy, Sing" (** out of ****) is one of 20 movie musicals in a 5-pack of DVDs released by Mill Creek Entertainment. The print is scratchy and time has not been kind to it. The dialogue is not synchronized with the actors' mouths because this vintage film has been mercilessly ground up over time by projectors and has lost bits and pieces of film. Nevertheless, for a predictable western, "Sing, Cowboy, Sing" isn't as obnoxious as most musical westerns. Tex Ritter makes a likable enough hero and Fuzzy provides the appropriate comic relief.