My Cultural Diet

A spiritual sequel to the ’50s-era TV western series starring Steve McQueen, Wanted: Dead or Alive stars Rutger Hauer as bounty hunter Nick Randall, who’s called on by his former CIA colleagues to stop a terrorist (played by KISS’ Gene Simmons, who’s largely wasted here) from setting off random bombs around Los Angeles. Wanted: Dead or Alive’s main problem is that it’s never sure what sort of movie it wants to be. Is it a cat-and-mouse game between bounty hunter and terrorist? A conspiracy thriller where you’re never quite sure who to trust? An existential treatise about a man living on the edge? Wanted: Dead or Alive contains elements of all of the above, and as a result, it’s a rather uninteresting mess. Hauer is watchable as always, though, playing a peak bad-ass ’80s anti-hero. (You know, the kind who gives us insight into his emotional state by shooting his TV with a shotgun.) It doesn’t help that Joe Renzetti’s score lays on the harmonica so thick, it starts to become a self-parody.

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