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Movies like Lone Wolf McQuade come from a cost-conscious time when production wise, all that separated most low budget action films from an episode of Knight Rider was a few f-bombs and a handful of blood squibs. There's also the fact that a significant portion of this film's budget no doubt went to a few admittedly sweet-ass explosions. There was once a time when that and the chance to see Chuck Norris and David Carradine flail at each other was enough to get people into theaters. Today we live in a world where if I want to see footage of zombies playing rugby with ninjas I can probably find it in 10 minutes, so I might be hard pressed to remember the time when novelty alone could hold my interest (...he says, as he pre-orders a copy of Grand Theft Auto V).

I can just barely remember the time when we had real life action heroes, and the chance to get to see them ripping someone’s lungs out on camera was worth sneaking into the theater to see (kids: never do that). Today, computers can make anyone do anything. Well back in the day, they didn’t need computers to make David Carradine look like he was pretending to know kung fu. It was all real! And that’s really the depressing thing about Lone Wolf McQuade. Chuck Norris plays the steely eyed hero well because he’s not a good actor and doesn’t seem to be able to move the muscles in his face. And David Carradine excels at playing the hippy-dippy villain who walks around barefoot and has no logical motive for doing anything, because David Carradine.

So in the end, the movie’s big sell - watching the two of them fight - does nothing to help it rise above being a mostly unremarkable basic cable quality revenge flick. Although to be fair, it’s also one that Norris later turned into a mostly unremarkable basic cable quality basic cable show. But the cult of personality around Norris and Carradine has dissipated to the point where Lone Wolf McQuade is as much a lukewarm curiosity as the sun faded national monument plaque outside every other highway rest stop in America. This in no way means that Chuck Norris is not awesome and that I do not fear him immensely, because of course I do.

Hail the Beard.

But if I’m looking for excitement, intrigue, explosions, mad kung fu fistfights and coherent, logical pacing, you’re more likely to find it in an episode of Burn Notice than in Lone Wolf McQuade. Then again, Burn Notice has never featured Chuck Norris literally digging his way out of a trap with his mechanical penis. There aren’t enough computers on the planet to fake that.

Hail the Beard.

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