Outlaw Posse

Van Peebles clearly knows a good Western when he sees it, but he hasn’t quite made one himself as his effort proves to be an occasionally intriguing but too often unwieldy work that is unlikely to make anyone’s list of classic Westerns anytime soon.

The multitasking director/star of “New Jack City” and 1993’s “Posse” leads a passel of well-cast supporting players in a multicultural Wild West shoot-‘em-up.

“Outlaw Posse” may not be innovative, but its regard for family affairs is worth treasuring.

30 years after "Posse", Mario Van Peebles returns to the western genre with a fun father-and-son cowboy movie that fumbles its political message.



As a Black Western, there’s a certain level of emphasis on what Van Peebles is putting out there, but there’s little need for the film to hammer down on obvious messaging. Instead, it tells a reasonably exciting story about lost gold and white oppressors.

Disappointing but entertaining revenge frontier Western that turns one off with its heavy-handed melodramatics.

The new Western from Mario Van Peebles is so ineptly mounted it’s shocking. A vanity project to its core, it’s a revisionist film that unfolds like a violent after-school special rather than any sincere attempt to reckon with America’s frontier expansion.

This lightly radical framing helps cover some of the film's formal sins, casting its low-budget aesthetic as more charming than not and keeping the proceedings solidly entertaining for undemanding viewers interested in the Western genre.

Mario Van Peebles' Western is, frankly, all over the place, but it has a spirited, scrappy B-movie energy and a host of familiar faces seemingly having fun in their small and supporting roles.

Mario Van Peebles, son of film pioneer Melvin Van Peebles, revisits the American West.