Amazon.com: TRADED BLU-RAY : Trace Adkins, Kris Kristofferson, Lou Reed and Kris Kristofferson, Tom Sizemore, Quinton Aaron: Movies & TV

For most Americans over the age of forty, who grew up watching Westerns that featured the likes of John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Jack Palance, Alan Ladd, Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and so many others of their caliber, who brought the Wild West to life, these same movie-going veterans damn well know what makes a Western good, and-or great.

They also know when one comes galloping along that turns out to be a real stinker. TRADED is one of the latter. A real stinker, and only a skunk of the highest order would assign more than two stars by way of a friendly review.

The Director, and perhaps even the writer, must have doled out a good many favors to lasso so many pseudo reviews; reviews that garnered four and five stars. Shameful, the things people are willing to do for a buck, or two, or a misguided sense of loyalty, or for whatever motivates them to bend the truth like a strand of saltwater taffy wound around a maypole at a county fair.

So what does a Western need to be a good or great film? No one has an exegesis on truth; however, veteran moviegoers, referenced supra, will, I believe, be in agreement when they say it all starts with a good, or even better, a GREAT story that can stand on its own, owing nothing to stories that preceded it, no matter the genre.

Heavy is the responsibility placed on the shoulders of the writer since it all starts with his or her script. Assuming the writer has made his or her script the very best it can be, after polishing same 'til their eyes bleed from the number of rewrites they did to get it perfect, the responsibility shifts to a Director, and the to all the others whose combined movie-making expertise completes the writer's vision...or not.

In TRADED, the Director failed--miserably. It's as if he was intimidated to direct Michael Pare, and the other name actors due to the cache they brought to the set. Which brings us to "sets." Every damn one of them was prettified and hardly reflected life on the old frontier.

Another thing, the writer never should have cast his story to unfold in Dodge City, circa 1885. What was portrayed as Dodge City, without thousands of cattle, mind you, and without extras in grubby (worn) costumes, instead of strutting about as though they'd all just come from the drycleaner's, would have helped, but there are certain liberties one shouldn't take, especially with a Western, one deserving of the name, that is, and still ask knowledgeable movie goers to suspend their willingness to suspend credulity.

And the scene with the white rat? WTF!? Where in Dodge would you find a white rat to eat its way through a man's innards? Somebody's pet rat got used in lieu of a down-and-dirty furry black rat that could outrun Dodge City cats and that misstep is totally on the Prop Master, or the pet store.

Having Kris Kristopherson appear out of nowhere at the end of the movie reeks of a Deux et Machina, an "act of God." How are we suppose to take that kind of ending seriously? Except to thank god that the film finally ended?

The Answer? No more seriously than we should take Tom Sizemore's fake handlebar mustache. Ol' Tom couldn't help himself, I guess, and seemed on the verge of laughing every damn minute the camera was on him, like maybe he was all the time thinking of Heidi what's her name. The Director sure didn't set Tom right. Sizemore's vaudevillian performance made the film laughable, almost a parody.

I feel for the writer, who sweated bullets getting his story, "his child," finished, regardless of its similarity to TAKEN. Who knows? Perhaps, when some money materialized to make it, it seemed too good to pass up but a good many corners were cut. It shows throughout.

Reflected by the constraints of a thread-bare budget, those who took the torch from the writer's hand failed miserably to deliver it to the altar.

I'm not a friend of Mark, or of the Director, or any of the others involved, so I can speak my truth without feeling compromised by a false sense of loyalty, or a desire to generate revenue. TRADED is a one-star affair folks,