Hard Bounty Reviews

Showcasing Matt McCoy's vocal impersonation of Clint Eastwood in his Sergio Leone period, this saddle-sore sagebrush-saga can't make up its mind whether it's a lampoon of spaghetti westerns or a faltering imitation of them. Structurally lopsided, it saves its major six-shooter blasts for the final reel while padding earlier scenes with repetitive anti-heroics on the plains and noisome low comedy in a whorehouse. Bounty hunter Kanning, known as "the Holy Ghost" (Matt McCoy), is a patron of the cathouse, run by Donnie (Kelly LeBrock) and staffed by her sister Rachel (Felicity Waterman), Glory (Kimberly Kelley), and Jess (Rochelle Swanson). Kanning's former partner, Carver (John Terlesky), serves as a regulator for money-grubber Bartell (Jay Richardson), who orders Carver to tempt local property owners with offers they can't refuse. Tricked into shedding the innocent blood of an eloping couple, Kanning finds that his newfound peace is short-lived. When Carver asserts his authority by slaying Rachel, Kanning is reluctant to spearhead Donnie's quest for vengeance. But after saving the whores' necks from a rotten band of Bartell's gunmen, Kanning helps the women with their shooting skills and acts as their guardian angel. After the gunslinging gals annihilate Bartell's gunmen during an ambush, Donnie wounds Bartell. Ensuring a fair showdown, Kanning stands by as Carver tries to pick up a pistol before Donnie can reload. Not quick enough on the draw, Carver finally meets the proverbial bullet with his name on it. Known for playing neurotic white-collar suburbanites, McCoy is so absurdly out of place that his performance proves once and for all that sounding like Clint Eastwood is not the same as acting like him. Other problems with the film are the wavering tone of its direction and the guffaw-less bordello humor-breaks. Sans exception, no one convincingly limns the rough-and-tumble wild westerners. White-bread McCoy and baby-faced Terlesky seem like college buddies at the opening of a Westworld theme park, and LeBrock's Australian-accented Miss Kitty clone is just too big a stretch. Perhaps the biggest tip-off to what's wrong here is the sparkly clean appearance of the costumes; no dust musses the duds of these cowboys. Like the unlived-in frontier apparel, the film feels borrowed, too, as if the creative personnel had rifled through boxes of Western genre clichés and tried them on without stamping them with their own personalities.(Graphic violence, profanity, extensive nudity.)