Delayed Reaction: Texas Rangers

[Note: This is part of a project I'm calling "A Century in a Month". The idea is that I'm going to start with a movie from about 100 years ago and pick a series of connected films until I get to the present. The rules I set this time are release years, per IMDB, can't be more than 5 years apart. I can't repeat the same connection although I can reuse the same type of connection. That means if I use "movies directed by Scorsese" to connect two, I can't use Scorsese as a connection again but I can use a director as a linking element again. I'm not really sure why I'm doing this, but it seems like a fun game.]

Connection to Big Bully: Both directed by Steve Miner

 

Premise: A group of young men are recruited to be Texas Rangers and stop a band of criminals in the Wild West.

 

Here’s what I find most entertaining about this movie. I am confident that most people who kind of remember this movie actually don’t. They do remember a 2001 movie about the Wild West with a cast of young stars and a modern sensibility. That movie is American Outlaws, starring Colin Farrell, Scott Caan, and Ali Larter. That’s the one that got a healthy nationwide release and ad campaign. Texas Rangers came out a few months later and bombed hard enough to make American Outlaws look like a success. We love to talk about the Hollywood production siblings like Dante’s Peak and Volcano or Deep Impact and Armageddon. We tend to forget the times when both movies tanked, like Texas Rangers and American Outlaws.

 

Texas Rangers is bad in a nearly kitschy way. It’s got James Van Der Beek, Rachael Leigh Cook, Ashton Kutcher, and Usher, which may make it the most 2001 cast ever. And Dylan McDermott being the veteran of the group, cresting on The Practice success even dates it. That’s a lot of people who have achieved a level of fame and don’t know what to do with it. Van Der Beek and Kutcher are trying to turn TV roles into leading man careers, as Leonardo DiCaprio, Will Smith, and George Clooney had done that decade. Cook was looking for the project that would cement her status after She’s All That. Usher was making one of his many attempts to move from singing to film. There’s a hunger to all of them that shows.

 

It doesn’t help that director Steve Milner is about as journeyman as it gets. His early fame was from Friday the 13^th sequels and directing episodes of The Wonder Years. I don’t know how to explain this, but it shows. He was my connecting point to get from Big Bully to Texas Rangers for “Century in a Month”. He directed both. TV was made fast back in the days of The Wonder Years, the rare single-cam comedy of the era. You forgive a lack of detail in a show. The period clothes aren’t going to be as worn. The house doesn’t always look that lived in. The same can be said about horror. It’s made quick and cheap in most cases. The focus isn’t on the detail work. Someone who starts a career like this (horror and TV) can get used to shortcuts that don’t work elsewhere. That’s why there’s a “kid who just made his first PowerPoint presentation” feeling to this movie. The shots and transitions call a little too much attention to themselves. The sets and costumes look like they were borrowed from a Wild West theme park. There’s an artificiality to the movie that’s not helped by the stars all looking very modern. All the pieces together combine into a movie that works so poorly that there’s almost a charm to it. Like, if the movie had embraced how anachronistic it felt, it could’ve worked a lot better. This was the same year as A Knight’s Tale. That’s the Texas Rangers template that could’ve worked. Not this glorified extended pilot.

 

Verdict: Strongly Don’t Recommend