Hard Ground (2003)

Fresh and Exciting

Absolutely the worst movie.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Well, I Happened to see this movie.I'm not a particular Western-Fan, but when a movie is good, then its good no matter the genre, and vice verse. This one is quite dull (even if it had been a Sci-fi flick).Im not gonna go deep into details, but my opinion falls somewhere similar to the lower scored comments here.The actors feels a bit wooden, the sound-effects are bad, the action moments lack "umphf", the bad guy is stupidly, annoyingly portrayed and overacted, the relationships between the characters is so embarrassing, the special effects ... well there is not that many SFX, etc.If you really have the crave for "Wild West" movies, go see "Young Guns" instead, or why not "Deadwood" - another TV-production that really oozes quality. But if you're in some personal quest, that you have to see every western there is, well, go ahead. Or if you do some research like - How Burt Raynolds Carrier is going down ... then this also could be helpful.I Gave it a "2", mostly because the horses did some nice acting. Acting like embarrassed animals in a low budget badly script, dumb movie, or was it acting?Overall, you don't miss anything by avoiding this.

I just bought this movie very cheap..I don't write many reviews...but i'll go for another try.I was at least expecting an average & entertaining movie. The movie is not good, and I don't understand the high/average rating on this board, even though there is only a few voters so far, it doesn't even come close to the result of the movie, which is very disappointing. Understand that everyone has the right, to have different taste in movies...but here it goes..The movie is poorly done. When it comes to acting, it seems kind of wooden or stiff, in this flick. Even for the legendary actors Reynolds & Dern. As for the lesser known actors, they seem mis-casted. Especially the young girl, who through-out the movie seems too pure, when you think about the dusty environment. Her acting was way too obvious, but not in the talented kind of way. The guy who played the main badguy, was so annoying and kept overacting his part. Martin kove's performance was kind of laughable, which i'm sure he (personally) was aware of. He had a silly accent and a "special" voice. Also the young the young guy, who protects the girl i the beginnin, reminded a bit of paul walker but his acting was worse.The music was poorly composed, and seemed to be too much in the background. There was also a lack of dynamic during the action scenes. Sometimes, I thought it sounded like a keyboard(synth) either way, it was only helping the movie, to reach the bottom of no-quality.The script made the movie kind of predictable, very stereo-type kind of characters etc.

OK. Two vets here, Dern and Reynolds. Two kids, Johnson and Peterson and a pair of villains, Figlioli and Kove and a terrible script. The sad thing about this parody of a western is they could have used Dern and Reynolds to much better use. Even the kids have some spark but the script is terrible and the villainous bad guys with no redeeming features whatsoever are just cardboard caricatures of evil. Alas, nothing works. The writers who put this terrible piece of entertainment together should be jailed and made to read Louis L'Amour, Zane Gray and Luke Short westerns. The leering villains, the stereotyped Mexican revolutionaries and the no-man's land bad guys are absolutely unbelievable. Even the sound effects with the constant whinnies of the horses are irritating. Nothing is believable and nothing works. What a disappointment and what a waste of talent of veteran performers Dern and Reynolds.

Hard Ground is a terribly generic made for TV western. The acting is atrocious all around. Reynolds, who I thought would be good in a western, is bland and boring. The whole cast sucks actually. The shotgun wielding girl came across as absurd and badly casted. As did several other characters,only less so. Maybe the script's to blame. My main issue was the movie never felt real. It felt staged. Actors in period costumes saying their lines is all I could see on the screen. This is a Hallmark western. Due to the excellent Lonesome Dove and the positive comments and decent rating here , I rented this. Don't make the same mistake.