Lone Wolf McQuade

• Directed by Steve Carver
• April 15, 1983

A Texas Ranger takes aim at a criminal with his hands in the drug and arms trade while both are interested in the same woman. And both do martial arts.

Don’t go into a Canon film expecting high art. And don’t go into a Chuck Norris film expecting sophistication. Go into either expecting quality trash. Chuck Norris knew how to make good action movies. He had (and still does have) an undefinable star power that made him one of Cannon’s most bankable celebrities.

Lone Wolf McQuade is a modern Western Norris made on his ascendency to cultural icon. Norris stars as Ranger Jim “J.J.” McQuade in a buddy action film where the loner cop is forced to have a partner for…reasons. Here it’s under the excuse that some nameless senator is seeking to disband the Texas Rangers and it’s largely due to McQuade’s effective yet frowned upon actions. Darn those supercops that can get the job done!

McQuade has a strangely warm relationship with his ex-wife to the point you might think it’s some weird marriage thing. They don’t out and out say it, but she divorced him because she didn’t want to wait up worrying about him. I guess it was acceptable when she was just his girlfriend? I don’t know. What’s even weirder than that is in short order after saving Deputy Arcadio “Kayo” Ramos (Robert Beltran) in the opener, pretty much the next day Ramos who saw his boss shot because McQuade didn’t move fast enough is now McQuade’s partner. Anywho…

McQuade goes head-to-head with David Carradine as Rawley Wilkes who by this point had earned his karate credits by being on the classic series Kung Fu. Chuck Norris being the Jean-Claude Van Damme of his day earned his karate credits in various movies. Both are hot for Lola Richardson (Barbara Carrera) who practically throws herself at McQuade because he is Chuck Norris. Beyond that there is not much to the central conflict other than this weird wheelchair bound guy named Emilio Falcon (Daniel Frischman) who is a rival to Wilkes.

This is as cheap and dumb as one would expect from a mid-80s low budget action movie. It is short on logic. Often the minor roles are filled with actors who are completely incapable of delivering their lines such as the federal agents that show up just to hand an indictment to McQuade. As mentioned before we have cops who do not follow the rules but are extremely effective. Heads of criminal organizations that engage in the crime directly rather than having their flunkies handle it.

I love the genuinely inconsequential girlfriend in this. Barbara Carrera has been in a few things you may recognize but once her character is shot she gives a heartfelt deathbed speech and nothing more. McQuade doesn’t even mourn her in the closing of the film.

Kayo is more a sidekick to witness what McQuade does than a character that does anything really helpful. Considering McQuade stumbles from A to B to C with the aid of a series of spin kicks the one thing Beltran does which is get into the government system that tells McQuade nothing he wouldn’t have learned prop from Falcon. And I think Falcon would’ve made a much more interesting villain than Wilkes only because it would be something, well, different and weird. 

Is this art? Not really, but Lone Wolf McQuade is adrenaline-soaked fun. It knows what it is and embraces it and because of that you will like it.