DESERT DAWN - Mark Reviews Movies

Desert Dawn, Saban Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 15, 2025

To watch Desert Dawn is to feel a little bad for Kellan Lutz, who's engaging as the hometown Sheriff with an intimidating physical frame and a heart of gold beneath it all. Luke Easton, the character the actor plays, is nothing new and maybe a bit too familiar, especially since he's something of an outsider to this small New Mexico town who has come to clean up a lot of messes.

Just as this movie is trying to replicate the success of material just like it (from older Western to current and popular TV shows), Lutz' performance sometimes feels as if he's trying to prove he could have played some of those higher-profile roles. If any more projects of a similar vein arise, a highlight reel of his work in this movie might help him get that gig. Otherwise, this is a barely competent and, at times, outright inept bit of storytelling and filmmaking.

The plot is wholly basic, so why does it so often come across as if the trio of screenwriters (Chad Law, Johnny Walters, and Art Camacho, who at least have names that perfectly fit the material in front of them) are making it up as they go? Luke returns home, after leaving town following the deaths of his parents as a child and the disappearance of his younger sister many years ago, and his work as a cop in Los Angeles was enough to get him the position of Sheriff. After listening to some small talk and catching up with characters who disappear for long stretches, we eventually get the case that will become Luke's semi-focus.

That's the suicide of a man in an SUV. Luke's style of detective work is pretty passive, such as when he just happens to figure out how to retrieve all of the deleted data from the man's cellphone and discovers a photo of a woman in the car's visor. The contacts on the phone lead the Sheriff to discover that the dead man was involved in some kind of deal involving millions of dollars in cash, and as for the photograph, the woman in it appears to be missing.

There's a lot more to the identity of that woman, by the way, but for some unknowable reason, the screenwriters and/or director Marty Murray play it as a continual mystery, even though we eventually discover that pretty much everyone in town should know exactly who this woman is. It's the whole motive for why the plot happens the way it does, and at certain points, Luke acts in a way that makes us wonder if we might have missed a piece of dialogue or an entire scene that explains his behavior.

During the climax, though, we realize that the filmmakers have been trying to make this a twist of sorts. It's the worst possible choice, since it makes the characters seem either too concerned about some random crime or too lackadaisical about something that means so much to them. Sure, that means the characters are constantly inconsistent or act in ways that seem completely unmotivated by anything, but at least that came at the expense of a "revelation" that's so obvious we really might wonder if we zoned out at some point.

Speaking of zoning out, that seems to be Murray approach to the rhythm and pacing of the movie. Scenes don't really end here. They just fade to black when the characters have finished talking about their shared histories or explaining some important information they've uncovered about the case.

Editing is often referred to as the invisible art of filmmaking, and that's not just because people don't often talk about in comparison to the other craft elements of a movie. The audience shouldn't notice it as much, because the skill of editing, much like in the composition of music, is generally in how we feel the rhythm of it. In this case, it constantly feels as if the entire movie is coming to a full stop and starting from scratch, and that seems more a stylistic choice on Murray's part than a technical decision by editor Ryan Rafferty.

Anyway, the plot is straightforward but convoluted, as Luke encounters villain after villain in a hierarchy of generic baddies that appears to end with a Juarez cartel boss (played by Guillermo Iván). Luke just goes along with every villain's plan and request, because his character has been transformed into such a passive figure within this story. There's also an unconvincing romance (with Helena Haro's Cheyenne, Luke's teenage flame) and professional head-butting (with Cam Gigandet's deputy), but Desert Dawn is such a fiasco of storytelling and filmmaking basics that the assortment of clichés within the movie aren't worth complaining about as much.

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