Extreme Prejudice (1987)

Walter Hill's wildly over-the-top Peckinpah-flavored Western often borders on camp, but fans of the genre will enjoy the exaggerated posturing of the leads and the film's carefully stylized violence. Employing the Precambrian-era plot about former friends on different sides of the law who are in love with the same woman, Hill adds nothing new, while painting both the hero and villain as larger-than-life, primed-to-explode kegs of testosterone. For good measure, he also throws in a cadre of CIA contract mercenaries, whose indecipherable mission requires a meticulously executed bank robbery. Is this really where our tax dollars are going? Nolte, as the stalwart Texas Ranger, transforms his face into solid granite in what may be his least expressive role, while Boothe seems to revel in the hard-boiled epigrams favored by two dimensional villains. The final bloody shootout in the Mexican village, a homage which tries to out-Peckinpah Peckinpah, is skillfully executed, but its length may have some viewers checking their watch. As usual with Hill, the woman's role is negligible, leaving Maria Conchita Alonso little to do, but Rip Torn, as Nolte's Ranger buddy, is the film's most lively character, and one is sorry to see him get the deep six so early. ~ Michael Costello, All Movie Guide