Review of Red Headed Stranger (1986) by Greg W — 27 May 2012

The movie starts off with Julian Shay taking his bride west to settle down. Once he arrives in the small rundown town where he is to take over for an old preacher with broken spirits he tries to revive the town by opening up and old boarded up well that he believes still has water.

Naturally, there are the local town bullies that don't take too kindly to the new preacher trying to revive the town and they try to terrorize him and his new bride. His new wife clearly doesn't enjoy her new life and pleads with the preacher to take her back to Philadelphia. The preacher balks and digs his heels into the ground causing his wife to run off with another man.

The first problem is that the lead actors Willie Nelson and Morgan Fairchild have no chemistry from the very get to. The EXTREME age difference really stands out as the two are basically playing in different films from the start. It's understandable that this is the road they should eventually go down as both have very different idea's of life. The credibility of the story is torn apart because they're very distant from the start and you're just left wandering why these two people got married in the first place. I mean, what did Raysha Shay see in her husband anyway?

Simply put, the first act killed the rest of the movie. I certainly couldn't see any reason why the Preacher would go from got worshiper to cold blooded killer in the blink of an eye. There is little justification here. Outside of some surface self-righteousness from the Preacher, there honestly isn't a lot to his character.