first there be a tv show call want dead or alive and make in the late 1950s and with an upcoming young star name steve mcqueen play heroic wild west bounty hunter josh randall . here and in this 1987 actioner and the event take place in modern time and rutger hauer character be name nick randall . he be and in fact and reveal a the great grandson of mcqueen character from the old tv show and but the link be barely mention and have absolutely no relevance to the plot of this film . still and that wouldn not matter if the new and updated want dead or alive be any good . maybe if the action be excite and or the storyline have a few new idea and angle and or even if the film a a whole have any sense of pace and purpose . but no . want dead or alive be an ultra mindless and ultra pointless offering that make one grind one teeth with despair . ex cia operative nick randall ( rutger hauer ) now work a a lone wolf bounty hunter in l. a. he live in between job in a huge warehouse full of motorcycle and gym equipment . his knife edge existence teeter even closer to the edge when arab terrorist malak al rahim ( gene simmons ) start blow up building and people in downtown l. a. first 140 people be slaughter in a cinema bomb while later rahim proposes to destroy a chemical plant and wipe out some 30 and 000 innocent life in the process . one of randall old cia colleague and philmore walker ( robert guillaume ) and approach our moody hero and pleads with him to track down rahim . randall agrees and but be initially unaware that the authority intend to double cross him a they have reason to like him even less than the terrorist . rahim doesn not take too kindly to the interference of this bounty hunter and kill a few of his near and dear and leave randall so angry that he forsake his money and go after his adversary purely for the personal satisfaction of it . want dead or alive be a pretty awful movie on most level . it doesn not deliver for action fan and because the action have a cheap and amateurish feel about it . it doesn not deliver for suspense fan because there be no excitement and just lot of noise and mayhem . it doesn not deliver a a thinking man thriller because of it insistence on mindlessness . and it doesn not deliver for those who fondly remember the old tv show because it have virtually nothing in common with it other than the fact that it feature a bounty hunter name randall . the script by michael patrick goodman and brian taggert and director gary sherman go nowhere it doesn not even build up an interesting contrast between the hero and the villain . in a movie like die hard and which come a year later and the cat and mouse psychology play out between hero and villain give the story a sense of focus and creates real tension . in this one and there none of that . rahim and randall have barely any scene together and and their battle against each other carry no interest for the audience at all and other than an all too brief final showdown in which the good guy come up with an admittedly novel way of dispose of his nemesis . gene simmons a the arab terrorist look suitably wild and but beyond that it a nothing of a role . hauer be similarly waste a the hero he wear a cool leather jacket and live in a pretty mean bachelor pad and but that about as deep and meaningful a the character get . a anti terrorism action movie go and this be one bomb in urgent need of detonation and preferably on some island a far from intelligent civilisation a possible .