Terror on the Prairie review by Bobby Blakey
I have been a major fan of Gina Carano long before she was in the galaxy far, far away or going toe to toe with Colossus going back to Fight Girls, American Gladiators and her fight career. Love her or hate or there is no denying that she has carved out her place in Hollywood with great flicks like Haywire, In the Blood and the Fast and Furious franchise. After her falling out with the house of mouse she teamed up with The Daily Wire to take on her next film Terror on the Prairie co-starring Nick Searcy, Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone, and Matthias Hues.
Terror on the Prairie follows a frontier woman fighting for survival against a ruthless gang of outlaws. Heading into this movie I have to admit that my martial arts side was obviously hoping with talent like Carano, Cerrone and Hues here that we would be getting some good fight action, but as I honestly knew would be the case this isn’t a martial arts flick so had to let that go.
The film is a slow burn for a lot of the first act as it sets up the hard mundane life of living out there. We see this family go about their day with little dialogue for quite some time, which was an interesting choice and probably for the best. It could have been trimmed down a bit to get to the meat of it all, but I also understand what they were trying to go for. In addition there is an element involving some Indians that I was hoping was setting up something bigger for the third act, but sadly it never came.
Once we get to the meat of the action it is pretty steady. This isn’t the full on intense action you might expect from a movie with Carano, but instead a pretty straight forward western which is clearly what they were going for. I will say most everyone here is a horrible shot since no one hits anything for quite some time, but this is the norm for films like this to keep the action moving and characters around
longer. Carano is good here and was interesting to see her play a character that is willing to fight for her family and survival, but isn’t the badass we are used to. It is important for that element to exist and buy into it for this to work and I was worried I might not believe all that with her, but it worked fine.
The rest of the cast were good and all played their parts well to keep it going. As a whole it is a decent western that focus strictly on this woman’s fight to protect her family. It is a strong female character that isn’t just a badass just because, but does what she can and not the typical damsel in distress. It actually plays up in a more realistic way and works for the most part. If I had any issues it is the pacing and run time first and foremost. As mentioned before it feels like there was a lot of unnecessary elements that could have been trimmed to make it leaner and a little more direct.
There is also the lack of real expansion to the Indian story element that is essentially used for a big moment, but not fully maximized. My biggest issue of the whole thing really is the underuse of the always awesome Matthias Hues. He just has a bit part and while I am always happy to see him on screen I really wanted him in on the action, but alas it wasn’t meant to be.
For those wanting to see the film it is currently only exclusive on The Daily Wire website where you have to join to be able to see it. If you a fan of any of the cast, westerns or I guess The Daily Wire decide for yourself and check out Terror on the Prairie exclusively on dailywire.com