One Ranger

Alex Tyree (Thomas Jane) is the titular One Texas Ranger. He takes down a buggy full of criminals but one gets away. He is recruited by Agent Jennifer Smith (Dominique Tipper) from British Intelligence to retrieve Irish terrorist Declan McBride (Dean Jagger) who is imprisoned in Mexico. Declan escapes and is set to blow up London.

This starts off bad. His banter with Tom is supposed to be fun and endearing to the audience. I did not find that to be the case. His gun battle with the buggy four starts out good, but there is too much bad writing. Why doesn't he take his horse? How does a bad guy double back to take Tom hostage? At least, it's still in Texas. Once Agent Smith shows up, the movie goes down a bad rabbit hole. First, she's a non-descript British Intelligence. The writing should be more specific. Writer/director Jesse V. Johnson probably thought that it would be fun to have a cowboy and a British gentleman team up. I can see that pitch. I don't see it on the screen.

So, fair disclaimer ahead of time, I'm a pretty big fan of most of Thomas Jane's stuff. He's had some great roles that I really enjoyed, and I hoped that this movie would be another chance for him to shine.

Unfortunately, it really wasn't a chance for anyone to shine at all, not even John Malkovich.

Not exactly sure what I expected, I guess I just expected a decent action movie with a Texas Ranger chasing after a criminal. You know, normal stuff. What we got was a weird knock-off of Walker Texas Ranger with a bad script, acceptable fight scenes, and a lot of cliché lines that didn't fit the movie at all. It's like an AI took a bunch of segments from a handful of the most popular action movies and just slapped it all together to create this .... I'm not even sure what to call it. It's just a bunch of oddly disconnected scenes that don't make a lot of sense and are stitched together.

I would also like to point out how ridiculous the gun-play was. Because after realizing half-way through that the story was a bust, I thought maybe things can be somewhat redeemed with a few good gun battles. However, the directors of this movie clearly decided to roll with an emphasis on flashy, and completely ignore believable. There are several scenes where dozens of rounds are fired from handguns that can only hold half that amount. Rifles are given to the main characters from "tactical/strike teams" without sights. Rocket launchers are used on people like it's some kind of video game. Characters using machine guns one-handed, as if recoil doesn't exist and physics don't matter. It's like watching a bargain-bin 80's action movie from the local dollar store, but without the charm, awesome hairstyles, cool cars, and mirrored aviators worn by the main character.

Anyhow, I'm done wasting my time with this review, already wasted far too much time watching this movie. Swing, and a miss. Better luck next time, Thomas Jane.

I can't decide which character was the most annoying and irritating, Thomas Jane with this phony cowboy accent faking a deep Sam Elliott tone trying to emulate Clint Eastwood, Dominique Tipper with her accent and entire character unconvincing, or John Malkovich speaking so slow and slurred like he was drunk in every scene. Just one of those characters are enough to make watching this film irritating, but having to put up with all three throughout the entire 95 min runtime was unbearable. The only convincing and entertaining characters were Dean Jagger and Jess Liaudin.

Then there's the predicable, convoluted, logic-defying and plot-hole riddled screenplay that has so much happening in the normally comfortable 95 min runtime, the irritating characters and slow pacing made everything that was happening oddly boring and uninteresting. The narrative and dialog was just a lot of nonsense, filler, with very little substance. I get that this was a low budget B film, but it was just a bunch of cliched narratives thrown all together to try and make an interesting story, and it failed. Maybe I would've enjoyed it a little more with less annoying and cliched characters, but as it was, it was painful to watch. Sure there were a few decent action scenes, but that's it.

I stumbled upon "One Ranger," a 2023 action thriller featuring Thomas Jane and John Malkovich, without knowing much about it. However, with such talented actors attached to the project, I was eager to give it a chance. To my delight, the storyline was a classic police versus criminal tale, which I found entertaining despite its familiar tropes. Writer and director Jesse V. Johnson deserves credit for crafting an engaging script that kept me hooked from beginning to end. Throughout the 95-minute runtime, the pacing was just right. The film struck a perfect balance between action and character development, which made for a thoroughly enjoyable experience. The cast was well-chosen, with Thomas Jane and Dominique Tipper delivering strong performances. The only minor downside was John Malkovich's peculiar delivery, which was distracting at times and made it difficult to take his role seriously. The action sequences were well-executed and complemented the movie perfectly. Overall, I was pleasantly surprised by "One Ranger" and would recommend it to fans of the genre.

And here is the paradox. If you are old enough to remember when Tom Jane was a hot-ticket A-lister, ditto for John Malkovich, then unfortunately you are also old enough to remember when both Dennis Weaver and Clint Eastwood did this same story (the former on TV, the latter in a feature), and did it much better. Just about every aspect of the production is weak, but most especially the writing and the editing. Director Johnson, best known for his completely forgettable "B" action flicks, does absolutely nothing to raise his reputation. In fact, ONE RANGER violates one of the "commandments" of film-making, which is to never make the villain more interesting than the hero. ((Designated "IMDb Top Reviewer." Please check out my list "167+ Nearly-Perfect Movies (with the occasional Anime or TV miniseries) you can/should see again and again (1932 to the present))