A stoic Nick Nolte and a charismatic Powers Boothe face off in this Peckinpah-style serving of sordid melodrama and intense bloody violence. It's a fun action-Western from director Walter Hill, a filmmaker often at his best when portraying tough male milieus. With story credit going to Fred Rexer and the colourful John Milius, it deliberately makes its way towards an exciting confrontation when bullets fly and countless squibs go off. This will mean that some viewers will be turned off, but others will enjoy the visceral quality of this material. Certainly one of the movie's prime assets is a kick ass cast of cool actors, not just Nolte and Boothe.

The two leads play former childhood friends now on opposite sides of the law, a familiar enough premise. Jack Benteen (Nolte) is a Texas Ranger and Cash Bailey (Boothe) is a big time drug dealer, and Jack wants to give Cash every chance to surrender peaceably. While this is going on, they fight over the affections of a saloon singer, Sarita (the very sexy Maria Conchita Alonso) and a team of mercenaries led by Major Paul Hackett (Michael Ironside) has their own plans that involve a bank robbery.

You know you'll have a good time when you see that Hackett's comrades are played by (among others) Clancy Brown and William Forsythe. Rip Torn makes the most of his screen time as Jack's colleague Sheriff Hank Pearson. Other familiar faces in the cast include Larry B. Scott, John Dennis Johnston, Luis Contreras, Gary Carlos Cervantes, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, Marco Rodriguez, Mickey Jones, and a briefly seen Lin Shaye. Forsythe in particular tears up the scenery. The sun baked cinematography (by Matthew F. Leonetti),Texas and California locales, and soaring Jerry Goldsmith music are all credits to the movie.

The audience should be able to enjoy the twisty plot, the interplay between the two main characters, and the big finish. All in all, this proves to be a solid outing for Hill and his cast & crew.

Seven out of 10.

This modern-day western starts off as a heist thriller and carries on as such until the action moves to Mexico two-thirds of the way through. After that, it becomes like a modern variant of THE WILD BUCH, with an impressive shoot-out at the end with lots of bloody squibs and a high body count - definitely a thumbs up in my book. Up until this moment, we have good actors doing their bit, a cast to die for in terms of '80s action cinema. All of this comes together into a nice package - a violent, heavily-plotted thriller with an above average cast.

Nick Nolte is the tough (what else?) sheriff, spending most of his time in shoot-outs with various drug runners - in Texas, apparently, the locals don't give a damn about shooting policemen. Powers Boothe is the drug lord with little screen time, in a fairly clichéd role; acting honours go to Michael Ironside for providing us with yet another textbook example of how to be a villain. For added might, Clancy Brown has a minor role as one of Ironside's men, and the cast is generally full of hard-asses like William Forsythe and Rip Torn. EXTREME PREJUDICE provides solid entertainment when and where it counts, with macho dialogue, toughness, and violent action throughout.

Larry McRose (Clancy Brown),Buckman Atwater (William Forsythe),Declan Patrick Coker (Matt Mulhern),Charles Biddle (Larry B. Scott),Luther Fry (Dan Tullis, Jr.),and Major Paul Hackett (Michael Ironside) are officially dead soldiers. They are a part of the secret black ops Zombie Unit led by Hackett. Jack Benteen (Nick Nolte) is a no non-sense Texas Ranger and his school friend Cash Bailey (Powers Boothe) has become a drug lord on the other side of the border. Sarita Cisneros (María Conchita Alonso) is Benteen's latina singer girlfriend. Sheriff Hank Pearson (Rip Torn) is the local cop. Bailey offers Benteen a bribe and Benteen counter-offers for him to walk away from his drug empire.

Director Walter Hill delivers an unabashed hard action B-movie. It's a throwback. Everybody is doing their hard-edged characters. Forsythe has a bit of fun. I like the murky nature of the Zombie Unit. It's a good B-movie delivering an implausible story and good action.