Humbersi The first must-see film of the year.

Adeel Hail Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Hattie I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

bkoganbing Desolation Canyon is a western that takes some of the themes from the John Wayne classic Big Jake and develops them a bit further. In fact it's quite the family tangle for Stacy Keach who essentially plays the Duke character and admirably fills his boots.Some outlaws come to the town where Patrick Duffy is the sheriff and his old partner Stacy Keach lives in retirement and raising his two grandkids. The outlaws include his son who is the father of the grand children and on the way out of town grab the boy Drake Johnston. The boy's mother Kelly Overton is divorced from the son Victor Browne and she's keeping company with David Rees Snell the town banker who is nearly killed in the robbery. He's an Easterner and insists accompanying Duffy and Keach. In fact when the final showdown comes it's almost a relief because for what should be a straightforward story, the plot has an incredible amount of twists and turns. There are a couple of bounty hunters also on the trail with their own agenda, the outlaws have one aside from the robbery, it's all a bit hard to follow.Still the players do very well in an extremely and needlessly convoluted story.

classicsoncall With the Hallmark name attached I expected somewhat more from "Desolation Canyon" and was less than impressed and satisfied with this picture. The feature players were prominent enough to carry off their roles, but somehow Patrick Duffy didn't seem to pull it off as the grizzled sheriff of Green River. There was no hard edge to his demeanor, and even less urgency to taking up the chase after the Press Reynolds gang after they kidnap a young boy. Now I can bow to the wisdom of his older partner Sam (Stacy Keach) who seemed to know a whole lot more about the tracking business than sheriff Swede. As it turns out, the quarry includes Swede's own son turned outlaw, and the kidnapped boy is Sam's grandson Abe.The good guys are aided by an uprooted Boston banker (David Rees Snell) who knows something about handling firearms, and that's one of the twists of the story. In one of the better conceived scenes of the film, Edwin confronts bounty hunter Winters, leaving him both confounded and weaponless when he simply takes a six gun right out of his hand. On the flip side, that probably would never happen in a real life situation.Another scene defying credibility occurs when the good guy trio pauses on the trail at a saloon, soon followed by Press Reynolds (Kenny Johnson) and his main henchman Jack McAllister (Courtney Gains). Press and his boys blew up the bank at Green River, stole seven hundred dollars, and conspired with Johnny Kendrick (Victor Browne) to kidnap Johnny's son. With all the build up aimed at convincing the viewer what a fearsome reputation Sam Kendrick had as a gunman, the movie could have been almost over right then and there. But nothing happened.At least some credit goes to the kidnapped boy Abe, wisely leaving a wooden toy horse on the trail as a clue to follow. Later when one of the wounded outlaws is left to oversee the boy, and just as I finished saying to myself the kid just ought to get up and go, the kid just gets up and goes! However take away points for running into an open field where the gang picks him up again to resume the cat and mouse game.As other posters on the film have noted, clichés abound, mainly written for Patrick Duffy's character, but the one that came out wildly but unintentionally funny was uttered by hard boiled Sam at the final showdown - "Reynolds, you worthless piece of....dung!!! Obviously cleaned up for the Hallmark audience, the remark only drew more attention to itself as wholly unrealistic given the circumstances. It's soon overshadowed though when Reynolds sends Johnny out with a single bullet to kill his father. In probably the only moment they ever faced each other man to man, Johnny implores - "Make sure Abe don't turn out like you and me" - just before he's sent to Boot Hill by Reynolds.Except for the gorgeous scenery and superb cinematography, "Desolation Canyon" winds up merely adequate as a made for TV Western, while the relentless pace of the commercials in the final third of the story didn't help. Even the title hearkens back to the days of the 'B' Western, when the name of the film had little or nothing to do with the story. There never was mention made of a canyon, desolate or otherwise, and the final showdown occurred at Antelope Springs.

b_shiznit Desolation Canyon is a great movie; however, don't watch it if you don't have an appreciation for movies or only see the worst in everything. I would imagine that those posting negative comments on this movie simply don't understand thoughtful writing and would be more receptive if the writers broke the mold of a western and never got it produced. If you enjoy Westerns with a little bit of thinking and a feeling of a good old fashioned moving picture, you will enjoy Desolation Canyon. If you enjoy your movies to have super-heroes, crazy special effects and astronomical budgets, you will NOT enjoy Desolation Canyon.

MagicStarfire 4 stars out of 10 Everyone's heard of the "chick" flick, but nobody ever says anything about flicks that would be of no interest except to guys. That's what this film is - it is the exact opposite of the chick flick - a word that I probably can't use here, so you can fill in the blank.This thinly plotted, prodding western could have all been told in a half hour program, with commercials.I had actually looked forward to this, having seen the previews, and also due to the fact it was being shown on the Hallmark Channel - which up until now I had always equated with quality films.The story, such as it was, revolved mainly around two ancient, grizzled old-timers, Swede (Patrick Duffy) and Samuel (Stacy Keach.) Samuel's estranged adult son, Johnny and his gang rob the bank, and Swede as the Sheriff and Samuel as a former bounty hunter, along with Edwin, a banker previously from Boston, go slowly ambling after them. Swede (and why he's called that is anybody's guess, since he obviously is Irish and not Swedish), and his old friend, Samuel, neither one seem to be in any hurry to catch up to the bank robbers. Swede is so reluctant, I could only wonder why he kept running for the office of Sheriff, since he obviously didn't care for the job.In addition to robbing the bank, Johnny stops by the home of his estranged wife, Olivia, and picks up his son, Abe, a kid around six years old. Yeah, I know that's what I'd do if I were on the run--take a six old along with me.Johnny and Olivia also have a daughter, maybe a year or two older, named Molly, but Johnny doesn't make much effort to snag her.Samuel's Mexican wife, who is young enough to be his daughter, comes and stays with Olivia and Molly during this time. Like everything else in this film, this comes to nothing in particular, beyond her telling Olivia about her own young son's tragic tale.At one point, Swede, Samuel and Edwin arrive at a tavern in an area considered so rough Swede takes off his badge before going in. There they encounter one of the bank robbers but Swede, as Sheriff, does nothing about it, neither does anybody else. There's some words exchanged, trouble started by the bank robber, but it doesn't come to anything much.At another point in the film, young Abe decides to run off during a shoot-out between the bank robbers and the trio who have been slowly following them. Now the intelligent thing to do would have been for the kid to run in the direction of his grandpa Samuel, (or hide) but no, he doesn't do either--instead he goes fogging across the prairie through grass higher than his head, no doubt getting a mess of ticks in the process.There is some very boring dialog between Swede and Samuel, with Edwin as the outsider.There is some more boring dialog between two bounty hunters who are trailing along behind Swede, Samuel and Edwin -- these two consist of a mountain man and a philosophical Mexican.There is some shooting, with the bad guys being the usual very bad shots, and with the so-called good guys walking into ambushes and gimping across a wide street in plain sight but with only one of them taking a non-fatal bullet in the leg.This film was only two hours (with commercials making it less actually), but it seemed like two weeks.