Plot? What Plot?
Renegade is the kind of film that makes you wonder if the script was scribbled on the back of a napkin after a third round of margaritas at Chili’s. Kiefer Sutherland plays an undercover cop with all the edge of a wet sponge, and Lou Diamond Phillips is the mystical Native American sidekick whose dialogue sounds like it was pulled from a fortune cookie factory and run through a fax machine in 1983.
The plot, if we must dignify it with such a term, involves the theft of a sacred Lakota tribal lance. Yes, a lance. In 1989. Not money, not drugs, not plutonium. A pointy stick. And the bad guys want it so bad, you’d think it held the power of eternal youth or free HBO. Spoiler: it doesn’t. It’s just a glorified museum piece with some feathers attached.
The Cast: Wasted Like a Motel Mini-Bar
Kiefer Sutherland gives the kind of performance that screams “I signed this contract before I read it.” He walks through scenes like he’s late for another movie—possibly a better one. It’s as if he knows this isn’t Stand by Me or Flatliners and he wants out.
Lou Diamond Phillips tries. He really does. He channels that post-Young Guns brooding intensity into a role that demands he wear lots of leather, say things like “the spirit world is restless,” and occasionally brood on a cliff while flutes play softly in the background. His character is named “Hank Storm.” I wish I was making that up.
And poor Jami Gertz. She’s here, looking confused, underwritten, and about as essential to the story as a dashboard bobblehead. She’s the “love interest” in the same way the ice machine at a seedy motel is considered “amenities.” Her role seems to exist solely to remind us that yes, there are women in this movie. Sort of.
Cultural Sensitivity? Never Heard of Her.
You’d think a movie about a Native American relic would, I don’t know, involve actual Lakota people in a meaningful way. Instead, the film gives us Hollywood’s favorite trope: the “noble savage” partnered with a white savior cop who learns valuable life lessons in between car chases and unnecessary shirtless scenes.
The spiritual mumbo jumbo is dialed up to eleven. Vision quests, animal totems, smudging rituals—it’s like the screenwriter skimmed National Geographic once in the dentist’s office and called it research. The whole thing reeks of 1980s cultural appropriation, a buffet of stereotypes served lukewarm on a plate of VHS fuzz.
Action You’ll Forget Before It Ends
There are explosions, shootouts, slow-motion dives, and motorcycle chases—all filmed with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for a Tuesday afternoon DMV appointment. It’s action by numbers, and those numbers are mostly zeroes.
The big climactic showdown features… another lance. It’s like the Holy Grail, if the Holy Grail had been carved out of a curtain rod and dropped in the desert.
Final Verdict: Pass the Peyote, This Movie’s a Fever Dream
Renegade is the cinematic equivalent of a bootleg dreamcatcher you find at a gas station—tacky, awkward, and vaguely offensive. It wants to be Lethal Weapon Meets Dances With Wolves, but ends up feeling more like Walker, Texas Ranger: The Unauthorized Pilot Episode.
There’s a reason this movie is a deep cut on Kiefer’s résumé and not something Lou Diamond Phillips brings up at conventions. It’s not so much “so bad it’s good” as “so bad it makes you question your life choices.” Like eating gas station sushi or calling your ex at 2 a.m.
If you’re into ancient lances, wooden acting, and clichés so thick you could carve them into totem poles, Renegade is your huckleberry. For everyone else: just rewatch Thunderheart and pretend this never happened.
