Rusty Revolver: Origin Pilot Episode Review – The Modern Day Western Makes a Comeback
Starring Anton Troy, Vernon Wells, Anthony De Longis, Rowan Smyth
Directed by Paul Morrell
With superheroes dominating the world of television right now, it was only a matter of time before we were finally given a show about a cowboy vigilante. But don’t worry because after viewing the pilot episode of “Rusty Revolver,” it became clear that instead of just tapping into the current zeitgeist, this is actually shaping up to be a damn fine program in its own right.
The pilot is titled “Origin” and introduces us to young Rusty, a kid obsessed with Western movies to the point where he even dresses up in a cowboy outfit and wields two prop revolvers. Whilst Rusty wishes that he could escape into a world of gunfights and lassos, he gets an unhealthy dose of reality when a sadistic mobster (played by Commando’s Vernon Wells) breaks into his home to extract vengeance on his father for not paying his debts. And you can probably guess how it goes from there.
With this being the pilot of the show, the majority of its runtime was devoted to setting up the premise for the rest of the episodes to follow. Nobody wants to see an origin story stretched out over an entire season, so keeping Rusty’s origin confined to a single episode was indeed a small mercy. We don’t see a whole lot of Rusty as an adult throughout the episode, but now that we know how and why he came to be a West West-themed vigilante, we can look forward to seeing him doing his cowboy thing as the show progresses. And although he only appeared briefly towards the end, Anton Troy really sold it as Rusty, so we can rest assured that the show certainly has a strong lead in place.
On a similar topic, one of the most refreshing aspects of “Rusty Revolver: Origin” was that unlike, say, Batman or Daredevil, our titular hero has no compunctions when it comes to using lethal force, making him almost like Frank Castle in a cowboy hat, so those damn criminals have something to fear as Rusty continue down his path of vengeance. A path most of us would love to follow him on in future episodes.
Summary
The first episode of “Rusty Revolver” did a fine job of setting up how to cowboy vigilante can to be who he is.
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