Product Details

• Actors: Jim Davis, Don Johnson, Cal Bellini, Nicholas Hammond, Darleen Carr
• Format: Color, EP, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Lions Gate
• VHS Release Date: February 8, 1999
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6301009738
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #359,259 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Western!!, May 20, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Law of the Land [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a great western about a sheriff and his deputies searching for a prostitute serial killer.Starring Jim Davis and Don Johnson,it's a must see!!

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Unmemorable, disappointing work by some talented people, February 27, 2007

By 

viewer (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Law of the Land [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Talented people made this movie, but the result was disappointing. Quinn Martin, who produced some outstanding crime dramas, tried his hand here at a Western. Unfortunately and uncharacteristically, Martin was unable to put together a solid crime story, strong characters, and a colorful backdrop. The movie's dabbling in sentimental, moralizing subplots, which have never been Martin's strength, only made matters worse.

The movie does not get high marks for creating a sense of place. It was tied down to a standard few sets and street shots, depicting an old southwestern town in a competent but not particularly noteworthy way. The mud in the streets sticks in the mind more than anything else.

The story was plodding and uncomfortably overlong for the minimal payoff. It failed to create interesting supporting characters or viable suspects for the early sword-slash murder of a prostitute. The killer was a marginal, cardboard character. The character had little screen time, was almost immediately suspected, and was quickly after being introduced -- yet too long before the movie ended -- shown to be guilty. The explanation of the killer's behavior was labored and trite.

Although the movie tried to differentiate the characters, they were weak. On hand as the sheriff was excellent tough-guy character actor Jim Davis, along with a number of lesser lights as his deputies. Cal Bellini turned in a decent performance as a moody, scrappy deputy; Glenn Corbett acted for the short time he was on screen with solid, deadpan authority as another; and Don Johnson was annoying yet somewhat likable as an always-grinning, dead-eye-shot con-man-turned-deputy.

But neither Davis nor his men did virtually anything to investigate or solve the crime. The solution largely fell into their laps because of a lack of any other serious suspects, because of some shoe-prints, and because one of them happened to be in the right place at the right time to observe the killer running away from an attempt on a second woman. Because he was given little worthwhile to say or do, and was forced in every other scene to grin to show that he was an avuncular softy at heart, Davis' character had far less edge or interest to it than the roles in which he has shined. His emotional outburst at one character's death added nothing deep or lasting to the story.

Nicholas Hammond had a stilted and somewhat obnoxious role as a staid, button-down deputy, married to Darleen Carr. Carr is always natural and lovely on screen, but the movie was trying so hard and clumsily to make her character into a "spirited" and "liberated" foil that it came across as shrill, loud, and forced. The movie presented Barbara Parkins' character in a similarly heavy-handed manner, again as if to fit a mold. Meant to convey proud defiance of shame or scorn, she dressed and acted like a surly, aloof débutante rather than as a flesh-and-blood people person, and was simply tiresome and unbelievable as a prostitute who became the killer's second target. Parkins' best moment came when she opened up slightly to Bellini, but that short scene had stiff, cliché aspects of its own. Jim McMullan added little or nothing as a quickly dismissed cavalry lieutenant suspect, supposedly a love interest of the drippy, whiny, undeveloped character who was the first victim.

The movie was weakened, not strengthened, by its subtext of "human dignity" themes. These were played out in subplots about the town's treatment of prostitutes and its treatment of an overblown but poorly drawn character played by Moses Gunn (another character, like Parkins', presented in a forced, stilted way to show "dignity" in the face of disrespect, in his case based on race). While well-meaning, these subplots were handled in a contrived, superficial way; they felt artificial and merely tacked on to the main story, which they bogged down; and they smacked of amateurish political correctness. They only succeeded in further sapping any genuine drama, suspense, or interest.

The production team and cast likely include people who are familiar to or favorites of anyone who would rate this film. So it is obviously tempting to give the movie a pass based simply on good will or nostalgia, rather than merit. I suspect this is what is driving some of others' comments, such as "great Western" and "must-see," because they utterly fail to come to grips in any serious or meaningful way with the details of what is actually on the screen.

The movie is not embarrassingly bad. But it is stolid, mediocre, and unmemorable, despite the involvement of some accomplished people. If this movie was a pilot for a TV series, it is no wonder that it did not sell. If you want to watch a failed Quinn Martin pilot, see the much better Travis Logan, D.A., with Vic Morrow, Hal Holbrook, and Brenda Vaccaro.