Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

bkoganbing Lately John Wayne films have been getting lots of remakes. Offhand I've seen remakes for Stagecoach, The Alamo, The Sons Of Katie Elder, The Angel And The Badman, True Grit and now a film from his early B western period, Dawn Rider. John Wayne was one of a kind, no one should expect to emulate him. But Christian Slater, you shouldn't have tried.Several of the plot elements are the same and Slater and the rest of the cast use the same character names, but there's no way unless you were a John Wayne fan you could possibly guess this was a remake of one of his films. Slater, a man of some notoriety in the west comes home to visit his father who runs the local Express company office in his town and shortly afterward is there when his father is killed in a robbery attempt. It's a quest for vengeance after that and the killer is closer to him than he thinks.One new element that was introduced was Donald Sutherland as a bounty hunter also after Slater. His character seemed to superfluous in a way. But this remake is certainly not a true remake of the Lone Star western the Duke did in his B western period where the good guys and bad guys were fairly obvious. Then again that western was for the Saturday matinée kid's trade in 1935.Slater is an actor who specializes in quirky and sometime unstable characters. John Wayne's boots were too big to fill.

Leslie Howard Adams Using most of the character names as was used in the original Tom Tyler film (Monogram) and the remakes starring John Wayne (Lone Star-Monogram) and Bob Baker (Uinversal), it would appear that such an outright theft should have also been noted when the writing credits appear on this film...but try as I may I fail to find one line on any frame of this film that mention this film was base on an original story and screenplay by Wellyn Totman, and also on subsequent screenplays by Robert N. Bradbury and George Waggner. Evidently, the use of previously-written copyrighted material, without crediting any of the original story or screenplay writers is no problem in Canada. A simple based-upon-by nod would have been honest, at least.

fiddleferme This was a remarkably well done western with class performances by Christian Slater and Donald Sutherland as well as the rest of the cast. The authenticity of the era the movie represents is excellent. The plot is involving and complex with well thought out character development. No canned music or banal stereotypes, typical in such movies as The Quick and the Dead. I found the movie thoroughly enjoyable, with a moderately paced action and well done action scenes. The music enhanced the plot without manipulating the viewers emotions. The hero/villain roles are complex.If you like Westerns, this movie is definitely worth watching.

nowego Having always been a big fan of Westerns I saw this listed and after reading the cast thought it might be an OK watch even though it got a low score on here.Low scores seem to be becoming a standard on here for any movie that doesn't have lots of action and explosions.Christian Slater can be very hit and miss with his movies and Donald Sutherland is getting a bit past it and now only plays bit parts, but I still thought this was worth a watch. I hadn't seen any of Jill Hennessy's work before but after watching this now will be having a look at Jordans Crossing.This follows the tried and true formula of a lot of westerns in the past with man hunts and revenge and a bit of humour thrown in here and there.Without giving the plot away completely a son (Christian Slater) comes home to his home town and his father gets murdered in a robbery. The son get wounded in the robbery as well and is nursed back to health by an old friend (Jill Hennessy), who just happens to be the sister of one of the robbers.The son, is also an ex Pinkerton detective and on the run from a dubious character (Sutherland) and he decides to try to find his fathers killers.Some of the gunfights are a bit farcical and they are not very good shots but overall the movie is quite entertaining and mostly moves at a good pace with a few slow spots. 6/10 for me.