Texas Rangers

Based very loosely on the real history of the Texas Rangers, this modernized sagebrush saga plays like it was led to slaughter in the editing room after being taken away from a director who'd read Westerns for Dummies. Stuck in a boring loop of genre clichés, a rag-tag group of young rangers pursue a cattle-stealin', civilian-shootin' and lootin' gang across the Rio Grande and engage in the occasional lifeless shootout. So much of the narrative has been hacked away that the main characters have only snippets of personality (despite earnest efforts by Dylan McDermott and James Van Der Beek)--and heaven help anyone less important to the plot. Not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)