A standard-issue law & order oater, "Justice" qualifies as a lame, saddle-sore, western populated with superficial characters, a shallow plot, and tiresome pacing. Director Richard Gabai and a quartet of scribes have contrived a predictable, by-the-numbers, town-taming, dust-raiser that generates neither surprises nor reversals. The only thing memorable about this slack sagebrusher is Scott Peck's crisp color cinematography and the reasonably atmospheric production designs. The frontier town setting and the buildings look exemplary, and the entire film appears to have been lensed on location in genuine New Mexican terrain that substitutes for Nevada. However, nothing that takes place here breaks new ground for veteran western aficionados. A solemn, laconic, U.S. Marshal, James McCord (Nathan Parsons of "Teeth"), who fought on the Northern side in the Civil War, rides into a remote Nevada frontier town in the year 1870 and clashes with a crippled villain, Mayor Pierce (Stephen Lang of "Avatar"), who has been stockpiling loot, explosives, and weapons in an abandoned mine with the dream of launching an insurrection. Pierce and his scruffy ruffians want to revert back to the way things were before the Civil War started. They terrorize a black blacksmith and try to horse whip his teenage son. Marshal McCord shows up in town to pay his respects to his late brother, Reverend McCord (Jackson Rathbone of "Twilight"), who had been stirring up discontent among the settlers against Pierce's tyrannical rule. The lawman thwarts the efforts of Pierce's gunslingers to whip young Abraham and intimidate Abraham's father. Meanwhile, the U.S. Calvary lurks on the periphery, waiting for an appropriate time to strike. In this instance, the right time is when McCord amasses enough evidence to prove that Pierce is planning to mount an insurrection. McCord learns about Pierce's mine from excerpts in his brother's diary, but he doesn't do anything about it after he finds it.
The problem with "Justice" is its shortage of drama. Every character is as one-dimensional as a cardboard cut-out. Stephen Lang's villain looks sinister enough, but he doesn't conjure up a real threat. Pierce's henchmen amount to little more than craven bully-boys who run roughshod over the townspeople and Marshal McCord. Clearly, Gabai and his scenarists haven't watched enough westerns to know what they should have done. An episode of the long running television show "Gunsmoke" might have sharpened their wits as well as their aim about what a fearless marshal should have done. The U.S. Marshal here is as slow to rile as the villain is to intervene. Occasionally, some scenes stand out. For example, when Pierce's right-hand henchman Reb (John Lewis of "Gutshot Straight") challenges Pierce, we see a hide-out gun that our villain has hidden under his desk ready to blast Reb to kingdom come. More scenes like this one would have bolstered "Justice." Sadly, the confrontations between the villains and the villains and the marshal drum up little tension. Marshal McCord is too easily lured into traps by Reb and his sidekicks, particularly a seductive harlot who lures him into a barn under false pretenses. It is incredible to see how willingly this straight-up, plain-spoken lawman capitulates in the face of threats. Of course, the hero in a western must suffer the wrath of the villains so we can admire his strength in the face of adversity. In a scene reminiscent of the Marlon Brando classic "One-Eyed Jacks," the bad guys strip away McCord's shirt and lash him repeatedly with a whip. Unfortunately, our hero seems more simple-minded than strong. If you've seen as many westerns as I have, especially violent Spaghetti westerns, you will be shaking your head in disgust as the hero lets the villains ride herd over him. Truth be told, "Justice" could have been a lot better, and the violence could have been escalated a lot earlier. One of the standard practices in B-movies like this is that the hero and the primary villain must confront each other as soon as possible. The romance between our hero and a Sunday school teacher is embarrassingly bad. Veteran actors like Stephen Lang, Robert Carradine of "The Long Riders," Lesley-Anne Down of "The Great Train Robbery" were obviously looking for a paycheck when they made this lackluster horse opera. There is no justice in watching the amateurish "Justice."
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