Texas Rangers (2001)

good enough for the big screen
the story, characters, actors, and scenery are great!
and the action is some of the best I've seen in ANY western!

this is a must see, that I'm sure you'll want to keep

Run, Don't Walk ... Away from this Movie
I will start out saying I am a native Texan and have some bias in my review of this movie.
That said, this movie is a very fragrant pile of horse manure. The movie claims to be based on fact, and then throws all the fact out the window to tell a sickeningly PC morality tale. Be aware that the only "facts" in this movie are some of the character names.
Here is a list of some of the more glaring inaccuracies:

1. McNelly's Special Force of Rangers was not a bunch of kids. They were mostly seasoned frontiersman, and George Durham stated in his book that the only reason he was allowed to join was that his father had served under McNelly in the Civil War.

2. King Fisher might have been ( and probably was ) a criminal. However he was also the elected sheriff of his county and highly thought of by many in the area. McNelly tried to arrest him several times, but could never make it stick due to lack of evidence. The two certainly never had a pistol duel. King Fisher was asassinated, along with the famous gunfighter Ben Thompson, coming out of a theater in San Antonio, TX many years later. And he certainly never massacred the citizens of a town.

3. Captain Richard King ( called Duke in the movie) was never captured by bandits and was certainly never hung by them. The name change is probably the result of the King Ranch not wanting anything to do with this travesty of a movie.

4. There were no African American Rangers serving with McNelly. The only black man with the force was the cook. ( Stereotypical, but true ) I imagine Usher's character was added to boost ticket sales and to placate Hollywood's PC paranoia. I don't know who dreamed up the "scout" and "rifleman" ranks, but it's complete b.s., they were simply rangers.

5. This movie was filmed in Canada, which looks nothing like South Texas. I live in South Texas, and it is semi-arid brush country. Not very photogenic, I assume.

6. The main culprit behind all the unrest along the border at that time was a man named Juan Nepomuncio Cortinas. He was a former bandit, Governor of the state of Tamualipas, and a general in the Mexican army. The bandit gangs were encouraged and sanctioned by the Mexican government, not Anglo outlaws.

There are other gaffs, but I am tired of listing them. My main gripe is the portrayal of McNelly and his men being loose cannons who just didn't give peace a chance. The border was in a state of undeclared warfare at this time and McNelly did what had to be done to stop it. He was not a cop, he and his men were soldiers. The Rangers at that time were not a law enforcement agency, that came later. ( They also didn't wear badges.)
In short, read George Durham's "Taming the Nueces Strip" or Walter P. Webb's "The Texas Ranger's" for the real story. Toss the movie in the pasture for fertilizer.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE!!!
i watch a lot of movies and although i don't write much reviews,but i just had to write one for this movie...i like it so much that i watched it maybe every day for a week!!!..:))...it's one of the best movies i've ever seen,maybe not good in a sense of art or whatever,but it's a story for the heart and i love it...i can say that the caracters of James Van Der Beek and Dylan McDermot are so cool and sexy and although i dont know the history about the Texas rangers,i did like the theme...anyway,cool movie....................