Extreme prejudice

Director Walter Hill helms this macho neo-Western with aplomb, providing a plethora of violence and mayhem, in the style of Sam Peckinpah (Hill worked as a screenwriter on several Peckinpah films). Nick Nolte plays Jack Benteen, a Texas Ranger with an incendiary attitude (that apes Dirty Harry), driven by the lawlessness and brutality that has invaded his hometown since the drug trade has escalated there. Heading a key operation is former friend, Cash Bailey; Cash and Benteen are in love with the same sexy Mexican woman, currently Benteen’s girlfriend, which incenses their conflict. Benteen’s success in disarming his former friend is limited and he is countered by a crack team of mercenaries, all ex-army and officially dead or missing, who have been engaged to eliminate Cash and his merciless crew. The bloodshed in this film is quite relentless, lots of bullet-riddled bodies and big guns, interspersed with numerous high tech crimes. Hill tries to keep the central conflict interesting but the variety of sub-plots and the many scenes of testosterone fuelled vicious encounters, muddies the narrative focus.