Gunfight at Rio Bravo has Nevsky as Ivan Turchaninov, very loosely based on the real life Civil War general of the same name, who instead of retiring to Chicago as he did in real life, has instead taken up shop in a small town in "East Texas." When Marshal Olivier Gruner shows up with a very dangerous prisoner, Matthias Hues, he hopes to house him in the local jail while he takes a load off. Hues and his gang have other plans, and his gang lays siege to the town in order to get Hues out. As luck would have it, Nevsky just happens to be a Civil War hero--though he'll never tell you that, he'll let Gruner and others tell you just how amazing he is. Now with Nevsky as their secret weapon, Hues's gang won't know what hit them.
This is your standard Nevsky vanity joint. Who's the man? Nevsky's the man. Were you not sure? Don't worry, he'll tell you again--or rather, as I mentioned above, have other people in the cast tell you while he looks on with false modesty. Now, when you get beyond the Nevsky vanity project element, there are some nice features. Scant runtime of 80 minutes which is even less when you factor in the credit padding. Gruner is great, and similar to Van Dien in Showdown in Manila, he could've probably carried the proceedings on his own. We also have a great baddie in Hues, and just when you think the Destro Effect is going to kick in, he threatens to set a church full of innocent people on fire--but even then, I still kind of rooted for him as the baddie. Finally, Art Camacho's fight choreography gives this Western a taste of Millionaire's Express, which is a nice touch. And that's the paradox of the Nevsky vanity joint: the "look at how cool I am" element can be insufferable, but the talent he's able to gather can make it all worth it, and I think ultimately, especially factoring in the runtime, that's what happens here.
We're at 51 movies for Art Camacho now, but you can see why I wanted Chinatown Connection instead of this to celebrate his 50th on the site. I think he does more work in this film to make it as good as it is, so perhaps on his end he would've preferred this as his 50th post, but to see him in front of the camera was fun too--and I think overall Chinatown Connection is a more fun movie. (As an aside, do we know why "funner" isn't a word in English? or maybe it is, because spellcheck isn't giving me the red underline...) This was one of the films he's worked on that he posted behind the scenes shots of on his Instagram, which always makes me more interested to see the finished product. There are a lot of great fight choreographers out there, but Camacho is probably the best in the DTV action world, and he shows it again here.
We last saw Olivier Gruner here about 2 and 1/2 years ago when we did Sector 4: Extraction. He's one that tends to get lost in the shuffle, which is why I wanted to get another one of his films on here. He's at 24 now, which means the 30 Club is in the conversation, and based on the number of films of his we haven't done yet, it should happen. We don't get a lot of great Gruner action the way we would if this was strictly his vehicle, but what we get I think is good. I was looking through his IMDb bio, and while there are a bunch of new ones we could do, I think we have a few from the 90s and early 2000s where he's more the lead that we should make a priority of too. Either way, we should avoid going another 2+ years before we see Gruner on here again.
And then our third Hall of Famer is the great Matthias Hues, who is now at 20 films on the site--which, we don't have a "20 Club," but is kind of a milestone just the same. He's a fantastic baddie, and one thing I like is how he's transitioned his baddie as his career has progressed. Early on, it was about his imposing figure coupled with his elite athleticism. I think only Dolph and Michael Jai White have that unique combination of size and athleticism Hues has, and in those 90s actioners he was in, he really made those movies special when he was in them as a baddie. Now that he's older, the athleticism is less of an element, but his personality and screen presence is so great that it more than makes up for it, so he still cuts an imposing baddie. Unlike Gruner, it's actually only been a few months or so since we last saw Hues, and with all the stuff he's been doing, I imagine we'll see him again soon.
Finally, I am in no way an expert on Texas, I've only been twice, once to San Antonio in 2009--which incidentally was during the H1N1 flu scare, and I remember going to the Alamo and a woman telling her significant other not to use the guest book pen--how I long for those simpler pandemic times--and then just this last year when I went to Dallas for work--and incidentally got to see the Texas Rangers play live, the eventual World Series champs, and only the second team I saw play live in their home park the same year they won the World Series, the other being the 2013 Red Sox. Anyway, I'm digressing a lot here, but my point is, with only these two short trips totalling less than two weeks, I knew enough of East Texas to know that this movie wasn't "East Texas," and I was right, it was Arizona. The thing I don't understand was why it needed to be set in East Texas in the first place. For historical accuracy, the Ivan Turchaninov this was based on had retired to Chicago by now, so this alternate, fictitious history could've just as easily happened in Arizona, or even West Texas where there actually is desert. If you only have to have been to East Texas twice like I have to know it ain't desert there, why not set the movie somewhere else if you have to shoot in a desert?
And with that, let's wrap this up. This movie has four things going for it: Camacho's fight choreography, Gruner and Hues, a scant 80-minute runtime coupled with credit padding, and it's free to stream on Tubi, Plex, and Freevee here in the States. I think those four should be enough to sell you, and then when you get those Nevsky vanity joint touches, you can have fun with them.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14388612
And my newest novel, Don's House in the Mountains, is available now on Amazon! Click the image to buy.
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