Mystery Woman: Wild West Mystery (2006)

An Exercise In Nonsense

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Kellie Martin and Clarence Williams, III are leaving the mystery book shop for a visiting wild west show starring former TV western star Bruce Boxleitner. Boxleitner is trying to revive his former career and is hoping this traveling show will renew interest in him and secure a movie deal.But Boxleitner has made a lot of enemies basically by being an egotistical jerk. Even the crew around him in the wild west show have a lot of resents. When his stand in is shot off the horse during a show sequence it's immediately assumed someone was looking to get Boxleitner. But Martin and Williams know there's a lot more to this.Look for a nice performance by Barbara Niven as a former western star once involved with Boxleitner. The relationship seems to be based on Gail Davis and Gene Autry. And another funny bit performance from Barry Livingston as one thorough postal inspector. Generations back he was Ernie on My Three Sons.Why did Kellie Martin give up this series?

I did not like this episode. Usually the crime is detectable and the people involved different. This was about a group of cowboys coming to town to put on a big wild west show.The head of the groups is name Clint who looks just like Bill Clinton and is in business and fools a lot of people. The people that work for Clint think he is rich and has property. He used other people and fake falls to present himself to the public when starring in these wild west shows.This was boring and took many turns. Others in this wild west were bitter toward Clint and just as deceptive as him.Samantha gets involved with the group. She is smart and a fan of the wild west group with their horses and performance. Philby and Cassie Sam's friends help her to find the killer of a cowboy that was in the show.

I don't know why I watch "Mystery Woman." I hadn't seen it in years, but I noticed it on Hallmark Channel and taped some episodes I missed. I love Kellie Martin, and I guess I keep hoping the series shaped up as it went along.It didn't, but this one, "Mystery Woman: Wild West Mystery" does provide some fun for baby boomers who grew up with all the westerns we did. Bruce Boxleitner, looking the same except for gray hair, plays an old-time western TV star named Clint who has a few enemies in the wild west show he does on the circuit. After he's injured in a fall off of his horse (which he engineered for publicity), he has his replacement Dogie (Joe Stevens) go on for him. Dogie winds up dead.Clint is arrested, since he seems he's the only one who knew he wouldn't be on the horse, but mystery bookstore owner Samantha and her assistant, former secret agent Philby, start nosing around. Suspects include members of the show: "Annie Oakley" (Barbara Niven) who lost her TV show thanks to Clint; Zeke (Charles Dierkop), and my favorite -- Strother Elam -- an homage to those two great western character men, Strother Martin and Jack Elam - played by Wings Hauser; and Jeb Fletcher (Jason Brooks).Despite the change in atmosphere, this is still a slow-moving, boring series that moves at a molasses-like pace.Finally, just to show how badly written this particular episode is, Philby is a former secret agent, a man with a mysterious past, who can do just about anything - hack into any computer, get anyone's financial records, find out anyone's criminal record - what can't he do? I'll tell you what he can't do. He can't find out who owns a cell phone number. At the end of the show, Samantha, while she's with Philby, finds the victim's cell phone and notes the last number he called. With Philby at her side, at the victim's funeral, she calls the number. Why didn't Philby just look up who owned it? I don't know. I just know that the lovely Martin is so much better than this.

This time the mystery woman and her coterie of allies, in particular former CIA hacker and now business colleague Philby (Clarence Williams III) and Cassie (Nina Siemaszko), her best friend who just happens to be a lawyer, investigate the murder of a stuntman in a wild west show who was doubling for the hero Clint (as in Clint Eastwood) played by Bruce Boxleitner. Since the show centers around the not so happy troupe of cowboys and one cowgirl, Annie (as in Annie Oakley), the change of venue adds an atmosphere of novelty to a series that was becoming somewhat stale.The rugged wild west show cast adds a note of believability to the mystery. Solving the murder becomes more complicated as the investigative team discovers that the hero Clint was having financial problems that involved internet gambling, bad investments, and an ex that he stole from another of the cowboys, Strother (Wings Hauser). Suspicion falls on Clint because he had previously faked an accident by having his stirrup strap slashed so he would fall in front of the spectators, enabling him to get free publicity.While the plot is tried and true going back to at least the Gene Autry oater "Home in Wyomin'" (1942) where the reverse happens and someone in a wild west show shoots one of the fans in the stands, watching the mystery woman team work is a pleasure if you don't take it all too seriously. The acting is top notch. It's good to see Clarence Williams III of "Mod Squad" fame on the tube once more. His part is a delight and the writers usually give him some good lines.As the old banjo player Floyd Holland used to say just before he performed, "If you don't expect much, you won't be disappointed."