Dylan Hobbs is Daniel King, a former member of the Texas home guard during the Civil War, a man haunted by watching comrades die at the Battle of Galveston.
Now he’s turned bounty hunter, tracking down war criminals. And his latest prey is John Dooling, a man with a $200 bounty on his head for being a union loyalist and trading weapons to the North.
King’s quest leads him to a nearly deserted town that Dooling is known to pass through. The “war criminal” isn’t there.
But King does meet the town marshal, Tellie (Whit Kunschik), a woman who also runs the saloon and makes a living selling drinks to passers-by.
And he also meets a young man named Parker (Bailey Roberts), who has his own reasons for wanting Dooling dead. Dooling killed both of his parents.
Tellie, his aunt, has since adopted him as her own. And she isn’t keen about his desire to join King in his hunt for Dooling.
As for that hunt, King hopes to draw Dooling to him by pretending to be an arms buyer, interested in spending as much as $5,000 on weapons and ammunition.
He dispatches former preacher Isaac Burk to the town of Eden — a town Dooling rules — to deliver the message.
But King’s plan doesn’t work out anything like he hoped.
Dylan Hobbs as Daniel King, arriving in the town where he’ll begin his search for John Doolings in The Bounty Men (2022)
Tom Zembrod as John Dooling, reacting to being tricked by Daniel King in The Bounty Men (2022)
Review:
Dylan Hobbs, Whit Kunschik and Bailey Roberts turn in stronger performances than you’ll usually get in an ultra-low budget Western.
But Tom Zembrod is ridiculously over the top as the villain. And the entire production is saddled with a plot that holds water about as well as a canteen hit by cannister fire in the aforementioned battle.
Exactly what is Tellie marshal over? She and her nephew are just about the only occupants of the town where they live. Why are they even there?
Is the Civil War over or not? King seems to imply that it is. In which case, who’s offering a bounty for a man who sold weapons to the North after the North won the war?
And in one scene, Dooling viciously knifes one of his own men to death over an insult. Deacon, another of Dooling’s men, calmly sits nearby and sips his coffee. And keeps right on riding alongside Dooling.
Whit Kunschik as Tellie, wondering about the bounty man she just met in The Bounty Men (2022)
Bailey Roberts as Parker, helping even the odds in a gunfight in The Bounty Men (2022)
Directed by:
Brett Bentman
Cast:
Dylan Hobbs … Daniel King
Whit Kunschik … Tellie
Bailey Roberts … Parker
Tom Zembrod … John Dooling
Thom Hallum … Deacon
Beau Smith … Randy
William Smith Parker … Jeb
Andy Anderson … Isaac Burk
Bob Stewart … Rider
Runtime: 78 min.
Thom Hallum as Deacon, John Dooling’s new hired gun in The Bounty Men (2022)
Dylan Hobbs as Daniel King, confronted by a protective town marshal in The Bounty Men (2022)
Memorable lines:
Daniel King, upon meeting Parker: “For a ghost town, there sure are a lot of people roamin’ round.”
Daniel King: “Got anything to eat around here?”
Parker: “Yeah, I can fix us some coffee.”
Daniel King to one of Dooling’s men: “Wait, I almost forgot.”
He fires his gun, hitting the man in his backside.
King; “We agreed you’d go back wounded.”
John Dooling: “Do you know why they call it a Mexican standoff?”
Daniel King: “Maybe it was invented by some Mexicans.”
Tom Zembrod as John Dooling, wary of changing odds in The Bounty Men (2022)
Whit Kunschik as Tellie, confronting Daniel about the safety of Parker (Bailey Roberts) in The Bounty Men (2022)
){kind=link}