Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		2.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.0

The Cowboy Way Blu-ray Movie Review

Cowboy Up (North)

Reviewed by Martin Liebman February 12, 2021

1994's The Cowboy Way is in many ways the flipside of 1991's City Slickers. In the latter, a handful of city folk head out West in search of Old West adventure and find more than they bargained for. In The Cowboy Way, a couple of rough-and-tumble New Mexico rodeo men head to the Big Apple to look for a lost friend and his missing daughter. Director Gregg Champion's (Short Time, a movie that desperately needs a Blu-ray release) film builds on a typical "fish out of water" idea but his characters are anything but hopeless. They bring their own brand of smart talk, Western attitude, and rope 'em roughness to both high society and the city's seedier locales alike in an amiable, if not mostly forgettable, film.

Quarrelling cowboys Pepper Lewis (Woody Harrelson) and Sonny Gilstrap (Kiefer Sutherland) work hard, play hard, and love hard in and around New Mexico’s highly competitive rodeo scene. When they learn that their friend Nacho’s (Joaquín Martínez) daughter Teresa (Cara Buono) is being held in New York for ransom, the pair saddle up and head to the city in search of their missing friend and his daughter. Their arrival is more culture shock for New York than New York is for them. Social graces aside, they quickly find themselves working a murder mystery and engaged in a desperate search for Teresa before the unthinkable befalls her.

The setup is simple and the film just runs with it, plot holes and pointless deviations and a general feeling of purposelessness aside. It's fun enough in sum despite some fundamental problems, including weakly defined leads and middling performances, a see-through plot, and gags that are intermittent, unfunny, and fully predictable. The film's humor aims more for a middle ground rather than slapstick, so there is that, but it's as if the script understood what wouldn't work, took that off the table, but never really found a viable alternative. The film is wholly watchable but it's also an example of squandered potential across the board.

Harrelson and Sutherland act the part, look the part, and fall into character well enough, but the rather vapid script rarely challenges these actors to work hard to build characters that aren't there beyond a couple of rote types. Harrelson plays the more gruff, brash, off-the-cuff lady's man. He bares all in one scene, is seduced by a New York socialite in another, and is generally the one to go off the rails at the drop of a hat (his or someone else's). Kissing or chaos usually follows him. Sutherland's character is the more evenly keeled of the two. He'll get himself in a dust-up if necessary but he's always thinking ahead and understating that there are consequences to his actions. The two opposites work well together both in the rodeo ring and on the equally unpredictable New York streets, but beyond the essential character beats the script doesn't bother to build them in any meaningful way. Watch for a couple of good support performances, particularly from Ernie Hudson as a mounted New York police officer.

The Cowboy Way Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Cowboy Way was originally released by Universal and is now being distributed on Blu-ray by Mill Creek, but the release looks decidedly Universal. It's a fairly typical image for a weaker Universal catalogue release. There's obvious processing in play, rendering the image artificially sharpened -- grossly so as the case may be -- and its grain structure hideously altered, long gone from natural and fine to clumpy and digital. Worse, the image appears to have been smoothed down somewhere in the process, too. Facial textures are left waxy and wanting for more natural definition. If there's a silver lining it's that textures are not totally destroyed. There remains a mild sense of definition to facial scruff, denim jackets, dirt terrain, and the like, but there's no mistaking the loss in natural definition and the forceful sharpening that took place on top of it. Unfortunately, the egregious problems don't stop there. Black crush is obvious and it's evident in abundance. Look at a scene taking place out on the docks around the 5:30 mark or as Pepper and Sonny arrive at a New York club at the 29-minute mark or, really, any nighttime exterior or low-light interior. Yikes. Blacks are just a morass of absorbing, undefined slop. Elsewhere, colors are vibrant but not at all subtle. Reds are pushed hard (Pepper's shirt seen in the film's early minutes) and the bright neon signs around Times Square definitely play with punch but very little nuance and dialed-in accuracy. It's gaudy at best and could certainly use not just fine tuning but a total tonal overhaul to get everything back in order. As if there weren't enough issues, the image shows frequent, and rather thick, edge enhancement on top of everything else. The print isn't too messy -- there aren't many splotches or speckles along the way -- and compression issues are not a serious concern. This is a bad Blu-ray. Mill Creek has released worse but...this one is still pretty lousy. This is obviously a very old master prepared for a DVD release that was simply plopped onto Bu-ray.

The Cowboy Way Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack is impressively energetic, perhaps a bit overzealous and lacking fine point detail and distinction but its aggression and willingness to expand the listening area help to offset any other technical shortcomings. The opening song plays with sincere stretch, decent detail, and vibrant verve, and various rodeo PA announcements flood the stage with quality immersion and depth, including discrete surround extension. The track delivers positive city ambience as the cowboys arrive in New York. Honking horns, yelling denizens, and other assorted fare present with healthy, vibrant positioning and immersion. The track presents similar ambience all throughout the film with the same level of speaker spread and feeling for immersion. Music is lively and wide with acceptable detail to instrumentals and vocals alike. A few gunshots later in the film hit appropriately hard. Dialogue is clear and center positioned from start to finish.

The Cowboy Way Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This Blu-ray release of The Cowboy Way contains no supplemental content. The main menu screen only offers options to play the film and toggle the English SDH subtitles on and off. No DVD or digital copies are included with purchase. This release does not ship with a slipcover.

The Cowboy Way Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Cowboy Way delivers decent entertainment value for the audience's movie dollar. It's a superficial film -- story and characters are content to simply scratch the surface -- but it's well made and acted well enough under the scripted limitations. It's a fun escape but it's no City Slickers. Mill Creek's featureless Blu-ray features bad video and decent audio. For hardcore fans of the film only and only at a sale price steeper than Mill Creek's usual day one discounts.