Lone Hero

I put this movie in the same catagory as "Roadhouse" and "Maximum Overdrive" cheap and forgettable, but for some reason, I own all 3....

Lone Hero is not for everyone's taste, but like the commercials for India Pale Ale up here in Canada say, "Those who like it, like it a lot."

Possibly the greatest B-lister working today, Sean Patrick Flannery, stars as a bad guy in a wild west show who turns into a real hero by roughing up some criminal bikers.

The cowardly townsfolk turn against him, and soon he only has a whacked out war veteran on his side. Is the fact that this is a made for cable movie obvious? yes. Is it cliched? yes.

This is just a modern western, and by the time the credits role, the film will be forgotten, but it is fun escapism for the 90 minutes that it lasts. And the theme song is kind of catchy.

Survivalists across the nation will love Lone Hero who takes on a gang of murderous bikers who threaten their peaceful western theme village. Our Lone Hero in this case is Sean Patrick Flannery with a little help from iconoclastic Robert Forster and others.

The film is The Wild One meets 3:10 To Yuma. Lou Diamond Phillips heads a biker gang only these dudes carry weapons that Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin never had. He gets into town and robs a local bar and one of actors in a western reenactment show for the tourists actually arrests Phillips and hands him over to the law.

But like in 3:10 to Yuma, the gang comes in and then it's a battle between Flannery forced to become a real western hero and Phillips and the gang.

The film really does belong to Lou Diamond Phillips however. He actually makes this murderous thug charming in his own gruesome way. He overacts to the max, but in this situation that's what I'd have done. He's far more colorful than pallid Sean Patrick Flannery as the hero.

Lone Hero is not a great film, but definitely easy to take and a film the National Rifle Association ought to be buying the rights to and disseminating as it perfectly puts their case against gun control.

if your waiting for the next john carpenter movie to come out and you stumble across this almost exact remake of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, you might want to give it a go... Lou Diamond Phillips is pretty okay here, better than he was in ROUTE 666 (which was god awful) and about the same as he was in BATS. But his performance in The Big Hit really smokes this. you might also want to catch RAISING ARIZONA if you like the deranged motorcycle part as well... all in all, a movie to watch on tv, but dont pay to see it. B-Movie all the way!!!

This is a thoroughly acceptable retelling of the 'outlaws run amok in a good old-western town' scenario set in modern times. This film, which is technically an action/adventure, can almost be seen as an homage to the shoot-'em-up cowboy films of a bygone era. It pits a lackluster actor doing hourly shows as a badguy in an old-west theme town against a vicious, win-at-all-costs leader of a motorcycle gang and his thugs. The characters are strong, and if you allow the usual 'willing suspension of disbelief' (and like a little meat to your movies) you will probably have a fun time watching this flick.

This film was recently shown in the spring of 2002 on HBO. The twist to this film involves one of the participants in a local town's wild west show given to tourist. A criminalistic motorcycle gang invades the town. It is that participant mentioned above who cleverly fights off this gang, one with the help of a friend who apparently is well versed in weapondry and by getting a few of the towns participants to assist him when the gang makes its final assault to seize the town with their ultimate goal of perhaps killing innocents and pillaging the town for whatever they can use on their travels. Lou Diamond Phillips is ideal as the head of the biker gang with a mean wise guy attitude. Sean Patrick Flannery is perfect as the mild mannered participant that wards off the gang. Robert Forster is good support as the friend of Flannery and the weapons expert.

There is a style to this action film that although makes it a sort of "B" film that makes it a cut above similar type films. I would say that the plot-story line is the key that is carried out very well.