JL Ranch (2016) Online

...I am always disappointed.

Hallmark used to have such wonderfully acted and written films. Apparently that group of writers has died off because everything they put out now is trivial, dull, and uninteresting with really bad acting.

"The Fish and Wildlife Service will be all over you like stink on a pig" is an example of the sparkling rhetoric you will hear. I"m all for giving work to Actors of a Certain Age (and I am of that age so I can appreciate it) but Voight and Caan show so little of their acting abilities that it's embarrassing.

And I can see taking certain liberties with continuity but this is a hot mess. And the characters are just caricatures with each one taking on the role of good guy, bad guy (villain wears a black hat, for Pete's sake), put-upon daughter, big-hearted sheriff, frisky granddaughter, ad nauseam.

Don't waste your time. Lots of better things to do!

For starters, if the J.L. ranch is 100 years old, I'll eat my own Stetson. Unless grand daddy built the first suburb in 1990s California. So, we begin with a cheap looking house, inside and out, that everybody fights over.

The plot, however, is authentically old. Dallas did it better and for a lot longer. the ranch is at risk by super long grudge-holding neighbor but it's saved by the small town sheriff and a sudden unexplained wave of support from other neighbors who earlier said sorry you're on your own with this.

All of this could be fixed but only with good writers, less plastic surgery, more Melanie Griffith glamor. Stiff, unconvincing acting from potentially great actors which boggled my mind.

I think Hallmark is trying to lay the ground work for a series because they left us, at the end, with only a reprieve for the ranch and the biggest plot which is that each sparring family are related through the grand daughter.

Watching Teri Polo scowl for two hours was really annoying, Voight mumbled and stumbled around with little passion except maybe for the paycheck and Caan looked drunk.

Throw out the house, most of the actors and shoot the writers and you're good. Or, again, just rewatch Dallas. They did it right.

Dry and boring 2 hours of time brought to you by Hallmark about a ranchers family headed by Jon Voight who is threatened to losing part of their farm on a false technicality spearheaded by James Caan - Voights rival. Many extra and unnecessary characters undeveloped that eat up time. Bad acting all around. Hallmark can definitely do better than this. Total waste of James Caan, Jon Voight and Melanie Griffith. Real disappointment. Too much hype for the last 6 months only to be let down. Nice theme music and locals in Kentucky,though. Quality Stetson- like hats. Well disciplined horses. Melanie Griffith's makeup was done nice,too. That's all.

Its basically a winking two hour glorification of domestic terrorists like Cliven Bundy.

Dry, boring, slow, incomprehensible, convoluted and infuriating are the best ways to describe it.

Voight's character at his best is a clueless idiot who has no understanding of the legal system, management, or pretty much anything other than pointing a gun at federal agents.

Caan's character is illogical and seemed to be based on Western villains. I'm surprised he never tied a damsel to a train track.

Total waste of time.

J L Family Ranch, or J L Ranch, is a horrible money, even as judged by Hallmark TV movie. It is bad in almost every way that a movie can be bad.

Jon Voigt, who is apparently too old to move or act, begins to understand that there is a legal threat to his ownership of his family ranch. What follows is a long series of emotionless, whispered conversations between various family members and with other townspeople. A variety of side plots are introduced concerning daughters, grandchildren, etc. We meet Voigt's lifelong enemy, played by James Caan. The two septuagenarian actors, Caan and Voight, have a whispered showdown that was surely intended to be dramatic and intense - but instead is a snooze-fest.

The plot has a glacial pace. It is also absurd - Voight never gets a lawyer, but instead encourages his neighbors to come to his property and have a shoot-out with the federal agency representatives. A senator is trying to divert federal money to a solar company he owns (really?) and he needs the water on Voight's land - huh? What? Then a helicopter swoops down with a miraculous solution to the problem. Aw c'mon, was this written by a school kid?

The acting is non-existent. Voight and Caan both act and look as if the worms were already at work on them - both look mildly bewildered as they deliver their lines, as if they are unsure of where they are.

The directing is terrible - unclear story-telling, bad lighting, dull camera-work, poor editing, bad musical score.

The pace of the movie is slow, slow, slow, and relies on whispered conversations to advance the action.

This film has no action, no humor, no narrative tension and almost no romance. And the film's ending defies credulity, and also manages to be unsatisfying and inconclusive. A genuinely bad film on every level.

Don't go near this. The UK release is actually a re-branding of a US TV movie called JL Family Ranch which appears to have been the pilot film for a proposed show that never went anywhere. It sets up lots of conventional, boringly-done threads of family drama (feuds, money worries, mother-daughter disputes, problems with alcoholism and gambling etc), which go almost nowhere because the whole thing is over in an hour and a half, all left unresolved pending the follow-up series that never came. Even the central plot about property ownership fraud isn't closed off properly.

What this is definitely not is what it has been promoted as in non-US markets; the UK DVD artwork (featuring a rifle-toting Jon Voight standing amongst squad cars and armed police officers) and replacement title of Texas Blood peg it as some kind of mash-up of Lonely Are the Brave, First Blood, and Harry Brown, with an old-time cowboy resorting to violent resistance in the face of persecution by his enemies and corrupt authorities. Just so you know - there are two gunshots in the whole thing, when fatherly rancher Voight scares some wolves off his land at the very start. The rest is tedious, uninvolving talk, with Teri Polo pulling emotive faces, a plastic-surgery ravaged Melanie Griffith unrecognisable (if not for her name in the credits I wouldn't have known it was her), and an ancient James Caan looking like he was going to bust every blood vessel in his head at any second.

As a lead-in for a TV series it is lacking, and you can see why the show didn't get picked up. As a movie...well, this isn't a movie. The earlier reviewer called 'BaronessFC-209-7408351' is having an absolute laugh raving so much about this thing; one can only assume they are related to / friends with those who made it, or else have some financial interest in it themselves.

An epic land fight brings two farm owners and long term adversaries to lock horns over disputed land. The "Texas Blood" it proudly preaches is actually set in Kentucky. It's a hallmark movie and all the hallmarks are there - proud values and heartwarming family scenes, American way of life, moralistic, simplistic storyline, and melodrama. Nevertheless, it is competently produced with a starry cast. It rolls with a convoluted plot which is wrapped up in 5 mins flat at the end.

Just felt too short for any story to actual be told. So many characters and 30-60 minutes more could have brought their stories to life rather than just introduce them and move along. What was there was brilliant and this was heading to be an 8-9 until I realised I was 1:15 through and the build to the end was coming

JL Family Ranch was so blessed to have the caliber of Voight and Caan in the leads that the whole project became grander. Story was solid and the cinematography was rich, Wow. For a film that was budget challenged, the whole cast did such a great job they left me wanting more. Lots of plots but each one explained through the slow rollout of the story lines of the Lansburg family members. Loved the storyline of Rebecca and Lisa. Introduction of Terrance and Brady was full of promise for interesting things to come. And especially enjoyed Sheriff Whitlock watch the animosity of Lansburg and Petersen to see if that keg of powder was going to blow. Then, the romantic tension between the Sheriff and Rebecca was delicious to watch, to see if he could rope her. Sheriff Whitlock was trying but Rebecca's old wounds, current family dramas and Tap Petersen's legal shenanigans gave Rebecca a reason to avoid answering the draw she could not ignore for the Sheriff. Director and Crew gave this modern western a great look at what Americana is and took chances that gave this movie room to fill the screen. Director used all his skills to fill this JL Family Ranch story with all they could chuck in there.