Welcome to Blood City

An utterly spineless sci-fi Western. The plot premise has possibilities: Dullea is hauled out of some unspecified urban crisis and into an equally unspecified laboratory, where a 'Western drama' is computer-programmed into his brain to test his ruthlessness quotient. The main dramatic problem is the feebleness of the Western (which occupies most of the running time); even Jack Palance as an urbane, unbeatable sheriff can't lend it more credibility than a playground version of Gunfight at the OK Corral. But what finally sinks the film is Sasdy and his writer Stephen Schneck's refusal to commit themselves to any social or political meaning; the way they trot out some newsreel atrocity footage to fuel a supposedly common paranoia about the Horrors of the Modern World is both facile and deeply offensive.