Rio Diablo (1993)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Frank Q. Dobbs, David S. Cass Sr., and Stephen Lodge
Directed by Rod Hardy
Starring Kenny Rogers, Travis Tritt, Naomi Judd, Brion James, Bruce Greenwood, and Stacey Keach

Features:

• None
  

Released by: Artisan
Region: 1
Rating: NR
Anamorphic: No.

My Advice: For only a few more dollars, Go rent For a Few Dollars More.

In between the penultimate and final installments in the venerable Gambler quintet, Kenny Rogers was pulled in to make the made-for-TV, pseudo-spaghetti Western Rio Diablo. Following the pattern of the Brady Hawkes films, but going one further, this one casts its entire principal players list from the CMA Hall of Fame, rather than settling for one or two cameos of Rogers' country/western cohorts. The results are about what one would expect. When your cast's strongest acting skills reside in Kenny Rogers, things can only look so good at the end of the day.

The story is fairly stock Western fare -- instead of the more familiar Rogers-as-card-playing-goldhearted-rogue, we get Rogers-as-ruthless-bounty-hunter, Quentin Leech. Alas, the performance is more unforgivable than Unforgiven. Tritt is Benjamin Taber, the younger, up-and-coming version of the same, motivated still by revenge rather than the cold, hard cash that appeals to Leech. Taber's lovely wife is snatched up by ruthless criminals, and it's up to this pair of ill-matched vigilantes to bring her back and bring the villains to justice.

The plot in and of itself, while thin, wouldn't be a terminal problem for a nice pulpy Western, but Rogers doesn't really come across terribly convincing as the hardened veteran gunslinger, and Tritt likewise is too flat on screen to really convey the whole "driven by vengeance into desperate action" thing. Judd is eminently forgettable in a role that allows her little time to develop any sort of performance, so it's not entirely her fault (though she should leave the acting to Ashley, who isn't running around trying to record country songs, after all).

The biggest problem with the movie is just that, quite simply, it's been done to death. Mixing together elements of Unforgiven and a half-dozen Eastwood flicks of his heyday just creates a hopeless mess of a Western, without the sharp-eyed and imposing Clint to bring it all together on screen. It's just too hard to take the guy that sang "Lady" seriously as a ruthless, greedy bounty hunter, when the shadow of Josey Wales still lays long on the ground.

Unless you're a *shudder* Rogers film completist, I can't imagine a compelling reason to pick this one up. If you're just looking for a Western, go rent something with Clint or Burt Lancaster. Even if you've seen it before, it'll be a more enjoyable experience than this is likely to be.