Lone Wolf McQuade (1983)

Somehow I've managed to go almost 30 years , three decades of watching a lot of crap, without having ever taken in a Chuck Norris feature outside Way of The Dragon. My Grandma always made sure I had a healthy dose of Walker Texas Ranger so I knew what I was getting into. So, this is the kind of movie that opens with shots of a wolf, get it? It seems cheap but it's really all you need to know about the movie. Norris plays McQuade a Texas ranger who works alone much to frustration of the rest of the police department. McQuade has a record number of arrests but at odds with his superiors for having no style. Yeah, I don't know. So David Carradine shows up as an arms dealer and just a general prick, the kind of downright son-of-a-bitch who holds boxing matches at his party so everyone can watch him beat the shit out of people. Then Carradine's girlfriend leaves and shacks up with McQuade. There's a lot of set up, on top of this there's McQuade's ex-wife whom he's on bizarrely great terms with, like they still go on vacation together. Finally, there's Mcquade's daughter who's boyfriend is murdered by Carradine's guys. The steps the movie takes to establish that Mcquade is a good guy is the most jarring point of the movie, pretty much every Chuck Norris interview I've read (there's a lot) has a bit with him explaining that he only uses violence as a last resort. Also its repeatedly reiterated that he's a man's man who drinks beer but only domestic beer. He has no problem making fun of midgets though.

So once you get past all the shenanigans, the whole movie is actually pretty competent. Roger Ebert actually loved this movie and suggested Norris should be the new 'Man With No Name'. I wouldn't go that far but there's enough gunfire and and explosions to entertain anyone who's pissed about Hollywood's current action dry spell. The movie has so many shootings Norris actually appealed to the MPAA because he said the message was positive. John Milius served as an un-credited screenwriter and it has traces of the far superior Extreme Prejudice. I can't give Lone Wolf McQuade the same endorsement Ebert did but for nutty 80s action movie with some Western elements it's not half bad.