As the saying goes, you can take the man out of Texas but apparently hell drag an arsenal of Lone Star State clichs wherever he goes, at least in One Ranger. Stuntman turned writer-director Jesse V. Johnsons latest action programmer has Thomas Jane as a Texas Ranger so ornery-tough he makes even Chuck Norris look too nice, called upon to chase terrorists overseas for no obvious reason at all. Well, perhaps the reason is simply to indulge some viewers notion that Texamurricans just naturally shoot n smack them foreign evildoers better. Those not buying such logic will find this mediocre effort ridiculous as well as uninspired. Lionsgate is releasing the feature to 11 U.S. theaters as well as digital and on-demand platforms on May 5.
After a text prologue bluntly offering the idea that it takes just one Ranger to handle an unruly mob, or presumably anything else, we get introduced to Alex Tyree (Jane) atop his horse, riding the range in requisite 10-gallon hat. Hes out here rounding up a drunken local thief (Gregory Zaragoza, playing a crudely stereotypical Native American) and ergo has an admiring audience when his marksmanship skills are soon called into use. Which happens when hes informed bank robbers are fleeing his way, having already killed three officers. Another two, in hot pursuit, die before Tyree manages to disable their off-road vehicle, then kill three of four perps.
The sole survivor flees to Mexico. But authorities there are happy enough to surrender ex-IRA-turned-multinational-criminal Declan McBride (Dean Jagger). It makes little sense that they hand such a dangerous individual over to Tyree alone, not counting one other Ranger of predictably brief screen time. The lack of armed escort enables an ambush and escape.
Next thing he knows, our taciturn hero is being solicited by British Intelligence agent Darby (Dominique Tipper) to cross the Atlantic and track this sociopath with a genius IQ whos reputed to be planning a major terrorist act on British soil for one of his very bad employers around the world. Tyrees elite investigative skills are needed, were told.
Unless those skills consist of being a crack shot with a mean right hook, they remain a mystery here. Instead, he and Darby just get in various violent scrapes against the usual low-budget backdrops of warehouse districts, empty buildings, disused alleys, etc., the Texan almost invariably quicker on the draw and punch than the purported notorious criminals theyre continually outnumbered by.
Theres a decent second mano-a-mano between him and McBrides main flunky Oleg (Jess Liaudin), but otherwise the action here is routinely staged and seldom particularly plausible. Nor does much tension build, either in individual set-pieces or as a cumulative whole. The film is slick enough to be watchable, yet theres nothing remotely memorable about it. Even the frequency with which characters ask Tyree, You really talk like that? seems less humorous than voicing an honest disbelief that his every line is some creaky cowboy hokum. Then again, all the dialogue here is stilted, and the elemental nature of some national stereotypes presented (esp. Irish and Russian) sometimes courts snickers.
Jane digs in with a stiff-gaited, croak-voiced notion of Texas machismo that a better film might have had some fun with. In this context, however, the able actors near-caricature just feels like another element that never transcends the one-dimensional. In order for Tyree to appear the man of every hour, fellow good guys must be made to look borderline inept, including co-star Tippers figure. Why her British Intelligence boss should be played by John Malkovich, with no attempt at an accent, is a puzzle but then his clock-punching performance, vocal mannerisms now distilled to a supercilious drone, makes one wonder why hes here at all.
Several subsidiary turns seem to have been cast on the basis of bicep and chest measurements. But disappointingly, One Ranger never leaps into the realm of conscious genre cartoon that such elements suggest, which might have lent it some snap. Instead, its a self-canceling combination of the earnest and the clueless, its technical competency shorn of any leavening style or personality. That lack is underlined by Sean Murray, whose bombast feels so familiar you might at first mistake it for a pastiche of library music. This movie could be worse but if it were, it might leave more of an impression.