
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 4, 1994                   TAG: 9406070068
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: B-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MIKE MAYO CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

JUST LET THESE COWBOYS RIDE OFF INTO THE SUNSET

For months now, ``The Cowboy Way'' has been promoted as a comedy, a homegrown ```Crocodile' Dundee'' about a couple of cowpokes in contemporary New York.

That's not the case. Instead, it's more or less a crime film about kidnapping, slave labor, murder and such. It's also meant to be a buddy picture, but that side of the story is so flat and unconvincing it barely deserves a mention.

Our heroes are Sonny (Keifer Sutherland) and Pepper (Woody Harrelson), rodeo cowboys who follow a missing friend to the Big Apple. He has gone there to fetch his daughter, an illegal immigrant from Cuba. Their only ally against the evil villain John Stark (Dylan McDermott) is a mounted policeman, Sam Shaw (Ernie Hudson, the film's only saving grace).

Don't worry about the ludicrous plot details; the quarter-baked script is strictly from fantasyland. Director Gregg Champion's work is no better. But those flaws wouldn't matter if Sutherland and Harrelson had the same screen rapport that makes the ``Lethal Weapon'' films so enjoyable. In this case, though, there's almost an anti-chemistry at work. These two are barely in the same movie.

For his part, Sutherland looks to be embarrassed by his co-star, and rightly so. Harrelson hams it up so obnoxiously as a semi-literate stud muffin that he seems oblivious to everything and everyone around him.

So, despite its heavy-duty ad campaign, ``The Cowboy Way'' arrives as the first real disaster of the summer.

The Cowboy Way

1/2 *

A Universal release playing at the Salem Valley 8, Valley View Mall 6. 123 min. Rated PG-13 for a lot of strong language, mild violence and sexual content.

by CNB