The Cowboy Way

Two rodeo pals from way out west take a bite out of the big apple in this hilarious bronco-bucking comedy. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 06/01/2004 Starring: Woody Harrelson Keiger Sutherland Run time: 102 minutes Rating: Pg13 Director: Gregg Champion

Somebody in Hollywood thought there was some fish-out-of-water potential in this teaming of wild man Woody Harrelson and slow-burning Kiefer Sutherland as a pair of New Mexico cowboys who go to New York to tame the wild, wild, uh ... East. Well, they were mistaken, because this 1994 action-comedy is little more than a tiresome reworking of Crocodile Dundee. Woody and Kiefer head for the Big Apple to rescue the illegal-immigrant daughter of one of their rodeo buddies (who has mysteriously disappeared), and what they discover is a sweatshop operation run by a hot-tempered thug (Dylan McDermott, before his role on TV's The Practice). That's when the boys start using their ropin' and shootin' skills to foil the bad guys. One measure of this film's credibility is the inevitable scene of the boys riding on horseback through the gridlocked streets of Manhattan. Uh huh. You know how it goes... you just have to go with it or marvel at the sheer stupidity of it all. Of course, forget all the sniping if you're a fan of Harrelson or Sutherland--they're both doing their best under the burden of disadvantage. --Jeff Shannon