Justified season 2. SPOILER ALERT!!!!!

The second season of Justified was more shocking and mind blowing than the first. Timothy Olyphant has gone into much more depth of this character than I think Elmore Leonard has. On top of that, there is Walter Goggins as Boyde Crowder who is the amazing badguy that you kind of root for. Normally when there are badguys your root for like this, he has some sort of good to his agenda, but not Boyde!!! Part of you wants him to run all the crime in Harland County Kentucky. on top of that, there is a slew of new characters, Mags Bennet (crime boss, and weed giant of Harlan County) and her boys, particularly Dickie Bennett. The whole season I just wanted someone to shoot him, and though it almost happened a couple times, it never did. But hey, that is cool 'cause that's what makes me want to watch the next episode, the hope that Dickie may get shot someday.

Rayon's relationship his ex wife Wynona gets pretty heated after her and her husband agree to divorce. Then of course the subject that got her and Raylon to split in the first place comes up, and it pretty much revolves around Raylon never being sure if he is going to come home alive from day to day.

One of the more interesting episodes is where Wynona manages to steal a bunch of money from the evidence locker, and Raylon plays hell getting it back, this causes Rayon's relationship with his boss Art to be real edgy. It almost makes a guy cry as we all have learned to love Art.

Mag Bennett ends up giving all but the weed business to Boyd Crowder. Boyd shacks up with Ava, gets Arlo (Rayon's dad) in on stealing the weed business from Mags, Dickie gets mad because he was the one running it for her, goes to Arlo's house wanting to "talk" to him. Arlo is not there, but Rayon's beloved aunt Helen is with a shotgun, unfortunately she doesn't have the advantage and gets shot at point blank range with a 12 gauge. I dispute the shows illustration of it, though it was very suspenseful showing a shot from outside the house, you hear her make a gasp and then she gets a shot out, though this is possible, I do not feal it would have been likely considering the weapons used, but hey is was very well played out and definitely made me make sure I didn't miss the next episode.

Next Raylon gets a chance to kill Dickie, but gets all choked up and doesn't want to be the badguy and just sends him to jail. By this point Raylon has thwarted assassins that were gunning for Wynona and makes her ex disappear.

The last episode, really started to have the feel of the old Gunsmoke show, Marshall Dylan (Raylon Givens) sees it his civic duty even though he is on vacation, to help a little girl who is out for the blood of her fathers death. In his attempts to find where the girl is, he gets knocked out with a baseball bat, when he wakes, he is tied up and hanging upside down in a tree. Salty Sam (Dickie Bennett) starts to monologue about how Marshall Dylan owes him for crippling him twenty years ago. Then eventually gets around to beating him with the bat a few times. Then the bad guy we love to hate, The Rango Kid (Boyde Crowder) comes in with a witty thing to say like, "I don't know whether to just shoot him now or let him hit you a couple more times." Oh but Marshall Dylan even in his pain is more witty and says, "I vote the first one." So Rango gets him cut down and proceeds to shoot Salty Sam, yay!!!!!!!!!! I thought. No, that doesn't happen, Salty Sam has  silver tongue, he mentions the fact that Marshall Dylan needs him to get to the Bennets place and save the girl. 

So Marshall Dylan takes Salty and holds him at gun point in front of The Bennett clans place in front of their numerous guys with machine guns, and says I need to get in there. The little girl has beat him to it, and fires a shot witch makes everyone outside start shooting at Marshall Dylan. This is the twist, normally Marshall Dylan save the day, no this time the bullets completely miss Salty (damn it!!!!!) and Dylan gets gut shot. Just when his chips are down and Salty's big brother has Dylan at point blank range, a sharpshooter hits the big brother in the head, it seems Marshall Dylan's friend with the Marshall's service caught wind of his situation and came to help, thanks to miss Kitty (Wynona).

Oh and in the end Mags Bennett kills herself with the same arsenic type poison she tends to put in her apple pie flavored moonshine to kill other people.

All in all I completely enjoy this series and season two delivered, yeah the people I liked got killed and the ones I hate seem to like, but that's what keeps it interesting. Watch this, but only if you have seen the first season, 'cause you won't understand a thing.

Riding The Rap. Elmore Leanord.

O.K. This one follows rayon, Harry, and the girlfriend about one year after Pronto left off. Basic back story is that in Pronto, Raylon took it upon himself to save Harry and girlfriends asses, saw someone who he befriended get killed in front of his eyes, then went back to Miami, and offed him (The Zip 'Tommy Bucks.)

This book has more characters than the first which makes it a little hard to follow if you aren't used to Elmore Leonard's writing style where he tends to stop whatever is going on, to tell some back story. It's like reading Snatch, or Once Upon A Time In Mexico, writing traits that I do not share with Elmore.

Riding the rap turned out to be a great read as I am used to this type of writing. The story follows Raylon Givens as he investigates the kidnapping of his friend Harry Arno, all the while dealing with the anguish of having killed a man almost out of cold blood, his girlfriend Joyce's opinion of that, and dealing with the fact that Joyce used to be intimate with Harry and now there is some tension in her and Raylon's relationship.

It seems quite comical some of the scenes involving the bad guys, Chip Ganz, Louis Lewis, and Bobby Deo, all of whom will be recognized from the show, but however, many things are different than the show and play out in different ways, this makes it quite enjoyable even though I watch Justified religiously, The story is still quite different and the surprising twists and turns still have Elmore Leonard's desired effect.

All in all, Riding The Rap is a great book, and I am now officially hooked on Elmore's writing. Four and a half stars!!!!!

The Man With No Past Teaser trailer

A Perfect Getaway. Four stars!! Just a good action flick!!

This movie was supposed to be one of those flicks with a crazy twist at the end. That it did but it wasn't exactly up there with The Sixth Sense. If you pay a Little attention you can figure out that the couple (Mila Jovovich and Steve Zahn) are not the people who they say they are and the moment I saw Steve light a butane burner I knew he was gonna cook some drug cause I have been to Hawaii and I couldn't figure why he was lighting it, I never did anything there that would need that type of burner.

The reason why I like this movie so much is for one, the local, Hawaii is so beautiful I was crying having to come back to Vegas (I am man enough to say I cried). I also liked it cause I am the type of guy that when I go places I kind of day dream about some extreme thing happening like serial killers stalking me as displayed in this movie. Of course in my dreams I save the day and everything goes well, same as Timothy Olyphant's character in this movie.

O.K. ow that you are totally confused let me tell a bit of the story. Steve and Mila are a couple on their honeymoon going on a hiking trip to a beautiful beach. Along the way they hear about news articles talking about some serial killing couple that has gone to their island. While hiking they run into Tim, decide to follow him as he seems savvy and can protect them from some people they pissed off on their drive to the trail head.

Next thing they know it Tim (who is an ex special forces guy) and his girlfriend seems really creepy (spoiler alert)and you think they may be the killers. But of course at the end it is found that Mila and Steve are the killers and they have Tim as their next target, the whole time they where playing the sheep and where the wolves.

This is where it gets good, Tim and his girlfriend slice and dice and fight to the bone and they save the day!!! Woo hoo, keep in mind though this movie is for entertainment not enlightenment or any awe factor just a good action flick!!

THE MAN WITH NO PAST

Follow our hero when he awakes in the woods with no recollection of who he is. When he is helped and befriended by an old farm couple who is being harassed by local wannabe drug lords who want their land to cook drugs.