Hard Bounty is a 1995 exploitation western directed by Jim Wynorski. I have recently watched three Jim Wynorski movies (Deathstalker II, Sorceress and Not of This Earth) and I’d been pleasantly surprised by all of them.

I’m not sure why I was surprised. Wynorski worked for Roger Corman (a man for who he still has enormous respect). He learnt the Corman approach to film-making. Throw in as many of the requisite exploitation elements as you can, stick rigidly to a limited budget and shooting schedule and make your movie as entertaining as possible. And if you want the formula to work then your movie has to be well-crafted. It has to look as slick and professional as possible within the limitations of a minuscule budget.

Wynorski learnt his lessons well. Deathstalker II, Sorceress and Not of This Earth are cheap but hugely entertaining.

Which brings us to Hard Bounty, which is not quite what I expected. In 1995 it looked like there was going to be something of a western revival. George P. Cosmatos’s Tombstone and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven did well commercially and it was generally expected that Sam Raimi’s upcoming The Quick and the Dead, with Sharon Stone’s star power behind it, would clean up at the box office. Making movies about lady gunfighters seemed like a obviously smart thing to do.

Alas The Quick and the Dead turned out to be dead on arrival at the box office and the western revival fizzled out very quickly.

Which brings us back to Hard Bounty. It seemed like a surefire winner. A western featuring whores-turned-gunfighters and lots of boobs – what’s not to love? The problem is that Hard Bounty doesn’t seem to be quite sure what it’s trying to do. At times it looks like it’s going to be the usual Jim Wynorski formula. It opens with a very good action gunfight sequence and then the scene shifts to the local whorehouse where we get some laughs, some glamorous ladies and some boobs. This is clearly going to be a Wynorski romp.

But it doesn’t turn out that way. The movie suddenly turns dark and serious. And it slows right down. We get some classic western themes – revenge, a crooked mining company trying to take over the town, a miscarriage of justice and a tortured bounty hunter. The bounty hunter is Kanning (Matt McCoy). He’s not a conscienceless killer but his conscience has never bothered him because he has absolute faith in the criminal justice system. If a man has had a price put on his head then he’s certainly guilty and in any case Kanning usually brings in his men alive. They’ll get a fair trial. No problem.

But suddenly being a bounty hunter becomes a major moral problem for Kanning when he discovers that sometimes the system is wrong and sometimes an innocent man can have a price on his head and sometimes a bounty hunter has to live with the knowledge that he’s been responsible for the death of an innocent man.

And eventually we know there’s going to be a showdown with Carver, a former lawman gone bad who works as enforcer for the crooked mining company.

There’s nothing wrong with any of this. These are the ingredients for a potentially fine western. But these are pretty serious themes. Not exactly the stuff of a lighthearted sexy romp.

And Karen Kelly’s screenplay is rather on the slow side. There’s not quite enough action and not enough sexiness.

On the other hand the action scenes that are there are very well staged.

On the T&A side this movie is quite tame. The sex scenes are very very tame and there’s really not a huge amount of nudity. There’s no frontal nudity at all. Basically just some topless scenes.

The most amusing thing connected with this movie is the IMDb reviewer who criticised it on the grounds that women didn’t really dress like this in the Wild West. This is a Jim Wynorski film. It would be like complaining about a fantasy movie on the grounds that the dragons don’t look like real dragons. This is pure fantasy stuff and the fact that the girls look like they’re about to take part in a cowgirl-themed burlesque routine is clearly deliberate and it reminds us not to take this movie too seriously.

Stylistically it has a definite spaghetti western vibe, which is fine, and considering the low budget Wynorski gives us a fairly handsome film. There are some nicely atmospheric shots. Wynorski, like his mentor Corman, knew how to make a movie look good while spending next to nothing.

The acting is pretty good. Matt McCoy pushes the taciturn western anti-hero thing about as far as it will go. I don’t think he changes his expression once during the entire movie. And that’s exactly how the part needed to be played. John Terlesky as Carver is a fine merciless villain we can enjoy hating. The actresses who play the town’s four whores (later to become gunslingers) are all quite solid. Kelly LeBrock is an effective leading lady. She gets good support particularly from Wynorski regular Rochelle Swanson and from Kimberley Kelley.

Hard Bounty is an oddity, at times grittily realistic and at times wildly unrealistic. It’s enjoyable but the pacing is a definite problem. Worth a look.

The Region 1 DVD is acceptable if not great and presents the movie in its correct 1.33:1 aspect ratio.