So Bad its Badass: Lone Wolf McQuade (Part 1)

Lets get this out of the way: Chuck Norris is a meme for a reason. His movies were all based on a simple formula: Create a villain everyone wants to see get the shit kicked out of them,  have Chuck Norris kick the shit out of them, then roll credits. In at least half his movies, the villain doesn't even have any kind of fighting ability or credibility as a fighter, he's just a human heavy bag for Chuck Norris to manhandle like a gorilla trying to get a suitcase open. The guy has kickboxed to death hijackers, drug lords, crooked cops, Vietcong, Ninjas, Karate Serial Killers, and the Antichrist. If it has a face and isn't Bruce Lee, he's round housed its face off. He even got a TV show (Walker: Texas Ranger) so he could roundhouse everything from gangs to abusive dads to HIV on a weekly basis. Stephen Seagal tried to do the same thing with his career but it just wore out its welcome faster than Seagal himself at a buffet.

I was going to make a movie title pun before I realized Belly of the Beast had beat me to it.

What few people realize is that Walker: Texas Ranger was based on an early Norris movie called Lone Wolf McQuade ( LWM from here on out). Its a spiritual adaptation because of rights issues and that's frankly a shame since LWM is unique and utterly insane. So without further preamble, lets dive right into this delicious turkey!

We start the movie with our hero Texas Ranger McQuade watching Mexican bandits round up stolen horses and state troopers preparing to arrest them through his rifle scope.

Binoculars? He's not a Rockefeller.

The state troopers make their way down into the valley as the Bandits corral the horses, and McQuade shakes his head at the poor expendable red shirts before heading back to his truck  to grab his rifle, since he knows that as the main character he's going to have to clean this mess up sooner or later. He loads it with an armor piercing round and watches the scene unfold below him as the State Troopers confront the banditos.

Who are apparantly led by a living stereotype of Mexicans

The Frito Bandito sneers at their request for him to surrender, swears at them in Spanish and opens fire with his pistols at the troopers. The Troopers have the high ground, cover, assault rifles and started out already in position, so they are naturally utterly outclassed by a guy who's straight out of the Tea Parties image of Mexico. As one of them is gunned down we get a reaction shot from one of the troopers, who might be familiar to some of you.

Picture him fifteen years older, with a facial tattoo and his spirit crushed

Yes, that's Robert Beltran who would later play Chakotay on Star Trek Voyager in a marathon of Not Giving A Fuck Anymore. He's one of the State troopers who are getting a mud puddle stomped in their collective asses by the Banditos as McQuade calmly watches from a distance with his rifle.

"Lets see how this plays out"

The troopers surrender and are rounded up  as Frito Bantio rants at them, telling him they're trying to take the horses that he rightfully stole before randomly yelling "Andale!" because that's what Mexicans do right? The leader of the state troopers in a moment of genre blindness yells that they'll never get away with this. This of course backfires and he gets ready to cut off Chakotays head for being taller than him, so I guess the appeal to authority didn't work out.

Clearly someone who will respect the authority of your office. 

McQuade finally decides that maybe he should step in to help and starts blowing up trucks with his rifle. FB asks him why he's "messin with my cars amigo" as if he was just minding his own business before McQuade showed up and started messing up his stuff. McQuade informs him that he's a Texas Ranger and everyone reacts like its Jabba's throne room and he just told him he has a thermal detonator. 

FB tries to calm his men down and orders them all to lower their weapons. He tells McQuade to stand up so he can see him, and McQuade obliges but this causes one of FBs men to freak out and fire on him. 

Bullets and Chuck Norris have a gentlemen's agreement in his movies

So McQuade carefully lines up a shot and shoots the man dead. This prompts FB to stomp around before shooting the head of the troopers dead and taking Chakotay hostage. He yells that he'll kill him if McQuade doesn't throw down his weapon and come out unarmed as one of his men nervously tells him that nobody has ever messed with a Texas Ranger and lived. McQuade actually follows through though, and comes down from his rock with his hands up. FB has two of his men grab McQuade and he tells him about how a Texas Ranger once kicked his fathers teeth out and mockingly asks if McQuade is going to try it. So naturally McQuade kicks his teeth out. 

Never invite Chuck Norris to kick you in the face

He proceeds to disarm the men holding him and kill the rest with the signature Chuck Norris weapon: The autoaiming Ingram SMG. 

At least he only has one in this movie.

It doesn't matter what he's doing or how he's holding it, this weapon will never, ever miss. He even at one point spins around in a circle firing it with perfect accuracy despite the fact that everyone he hits is clearly several feet from where the rounds are impacting. Soon the only left alive is FB (begging for mercy before trying to grab a pistol) and McQuade tells him that he's just like his father. Which means that he either kicked the teeth out of FB's father when he was really young or he kicked an old man's teeth out. Neither would be out of character.

After Chakotay gets a little too overeager in thanking McQuade, we cut to him driving back to El Paso to witness his mentor Dakota's retirement ceremony.

He taught him everything he knows about being a Texas Ranger and his secret blend of 11 herbs and spices

They crack open some beers and their boss comes over to tell them how much he despises them before telling McQuade to see him in his office. Once there he gets the standard dressing down scene where the captain yells at him, saying despite the fact that he's awesome (he leads arrests for the entire nation), he's too dirty and unwholesome. The Captains ideal ranger is "a model citizen, a pillar of the community, he goes to church, he lives clean and has a loving wife and kids."

Ae you saying he doesn't live clean?

He then shows an editorial by a senator saying that McQuade is a walking symbol of police brutality before telling him that his "Lone Wolf days are over" and giving him a new partner: Chakotay, naturally. We finally get to learn that his name is Arcadio Ramos but everyone calls him "Kayo". McQuade storms out and the captain tells Kayo to follow him.

We are then introduced to our main villain for the movie Wilkes, played by the man himself David Carradine who seems to have insisted on just filming in whatever he was already wearing.

A dramatization of the producers casting Carradine

He's selling weapons to Cubans who want to overthrow Castro and they try to double cross him, jamming a pistol in his face. He's David Carradine, the white Shaolin Monk himself, so naturally some two bit Cubans don't stand a chance. The leader is killed by a roundhouse kick and his men are gunned down by the dozen armed men accompanying Wilkes. Talk about failing a perception check!

We go back to Kayo who's snooping around McQuades dumpy house but gets caught.

And yet this is an improvement over working for Janeway

He gets kicked out by McQuade and chased back to his car by the happiest looking Dog that's been dubbed over with random snarling. McQuade goes out back to go target shooting shirtless, and we keep cutting to the most overblown reaction shots from Kayo possible, trying to sell how badass he is for being able to hit a target from six feet away. This guy apparently cannot believe what he's seeing.

But then again he was captured by a snack food mascot. 

After his shirtless target shooting practice, he gets into Super Truck and heads off. Kayo tries to follow him, but McQuade hits the little red button on his truck and manages to get it up to about a hundred and twenty, leaving Kayo in a ditch as he crashes trying to keep up. He picks up his daughter from his ex wife's place and we get to meet Dead Meat his daughters boyfriend  who gushes over McQuade and how he received the Silver Star in the Marines before he was a Texas Ranger. His exposition delivered, he awkwardly shuffles off frame as McQuade takes his daughter to a horse show.

While he's working in the stables, he is watched by Wilkes and his boss.

What.

Then without a word, Wilkes leaves and the dwarf snears in triumph.

What.

Then the scene ends. No explanation, not even a hint as to what the fuck that just was and we're off to the romance sub plot. McQuade saves a woman on a runaway horse and it turns out she's the widow of a wealthy man who died under mysterious circumstances. After much small talk, they head over to an exhibition fight where Wilkes is beating the shit out of random people in a boxing ring. He sees McQuade and tries to goad him into a fight but McQuade refuses as that god damn dwarf watches.

Wilkes takes offense to this and has some goons beat the shit out of  Kayo while McQuade watches.

"Lets see how this plays out."

Dakota tries to intervene but is knocked unconcious and McQuade decides that he should probably step in before they start working over the love interest with a tire iron. He works over the redneck mooks with ridiculous ease, establishing dominance over the secondary characters. One of the mooks also learns why a beer bottle is a terrible weapon, as McQuade grabs his hand and crushes his hand into the bottle until it shatters inside his grip.

Number one in police brutality three years running

Wilkes comes over and tries to pick another fight but the love interest steps between them and stops the fight before it can begin. They walk away and Kayo asks why they aren't you know, arresting the guys who assaulted two law enforcement agents. McQuade tells him that if he locked up everyone he got into a fight with, he'd have half of the county in jail. Which is probably not hyperbole knowing this character, but this whole thing somehow causes him and Kayo to bond while the Dwarf looks on and laughs in triumph.

Seriously movie, what the fuck?

McQuade goes out to dinner with the Love Interest who has a reputation as a black widow since her husband died under mysterious circumstances but she wins McQuades heart by backhanding a guy off his feet Love, Chuck Norris Style. While this is happening, his daughter is making out with DeadMeat when they see what is supposed to be an army convoy ambushed by men pretending to be the police.

"Look Phil, all I'm saying is we might have over done it on the flares"

They get in their car to get help but suddenly headlights from another car turn on beside them. Either the car was parked there since before they were making out or it managed to sneak up completely unnoticed like a Predator Lincoln Continental. I am of course going to assume the latter. So DeadMeat sees two men armed with SMGs and confronts them with a tire iron and is quickly removed from the movie. McQuades daughter freaks out and hides in a corner as the Predator Continental pushes the door closed and shoves the car over the edge of a cliff without making a single sound before slinking away.

"Iwo Jima, Cambodia, Beirut. Drawn by heat and conflict. He's on safari."

McQuade gets the call and after making sure his daughter is alright in the hospital, goes to investigate the scene. Unfortunately for him, the feds have arrived and tell him to shove off since its under their jurisdiction. So naturally he gets to work on the case with Kayo. He tries to get information by calling up random military officers which doesn't get him anywhere but luckily Kayo has a post it note with codes that get him into the central classified computer system of the entire US military. The shipment contained a wide array of military weapons from rifles to miniguns to 105mm towed arty to "Chi-Com Rifles". Lacking any other leads, he decides to go shake down the local scumbag and see what he knows with his side kicks Kayo and Super Ram Charger.

"When I am not around the truck is in charge"

They go after the general all purpose dirt bag of the county named Snow who is hiding out in a textile facftory. Super Ram charges through some gates to allow for some good old police brutality to unfold as Kayo beats a random man  while McQuade tells him that he's getting the hang of being a Ranger. They confront Snow and he tries to shoot them.

This plan fails for obvious reasons

After Kayo and McQuade shoot his guards to death, Snow makes a break for it in his truck while McQuade jumps on board. After sliding around for a few minutes while Snow tries to shoot him with an empty gun, before he crashes into a tanker full of gasoline as McQuade rolls off. As the truck fills with gasoline, Snow keeps trying to start it. Which is of course, a terrible combination.

"Come on, start you piece of-AAAAAAH"

McQuade rushes in to save Snow and gets him clear before the entire tanker explodes. Rather than say, arrest him and bring him into the station, he instead brings him to his mentor's house. While there, Snow tries to pull a hidden knife on Dakota but gets his arm snapped like a twig for the attempt and Dakota fires McQuades Ingram at him until he starts talking. Falcone is getting his hands on as many weapons as possible and selling them to terrorists and dictators all over the world. McQuade leaves Snow with his mentor and rookie partner for protection. Naturally, this means at minimum two out of three must die.

Redshirts playing Poker.

So tune in for part two to see who lives, who dies and who gets their face kicked off and just what the fuck is the deal with that midget.