Big Kill

Jake and Travis are a couple of saddlebums who roam the West, getting themselves run out of various town, or sometimes entire territories. Jake gambles (and loses) a lot. Travis, for reasons that escape me, has a remarkable knack with the ladies, but isn't always the smartest about picking them.

After being chased out of Mexico by an irate Danny Trejo, they agree to escort this accountant, Jim, to a town in Arizona called Big Kill, which Jim's brother assured him is booming.

It is not booming, except when cowboys bring in cows they found. . . somewhere, and quickly get them slaughtered and shipped out. There's a "preacher" who controls the town with a small group of gunmen, in cahoots with the mayor, Jim's brother. Things proceed as they usually do. The mayor has a change of heart, the preacher's unreceptive, Jim decides to make a stand, Travis and Jake decide to help.

So the plot is fairly by the numbers. The movie can be funny at times. I can't tell if it's trying to be, or if they're trying so hard to do a conventional Western it occasionally slips into parody. Probably the former, but some of the dialogue and the musical cues make me wonder. Lou Diamond Phillips is in here as the preacher's top gun, and when he introduces himself to Jake and Travis - as Johnny Kane - they do the little guitar strum (which the captions describe as a 'musical stinger'). Then Jake and Travis respond that they've never heard of him.

Travis sets his eyes on another of the preacher's killers and also a lady of the evening, who's named Felicia Stilleto. He first sees her literally stabbing a customer, who I assume was being rude, like fifteen times, then dumping him over the railing. Travis sees that, and decides he's got to climb into her room through the window. Which somehow doesn't get him stabbed forty times. Maybe she appreciates stupidly bold men.