It's Not a Goodnight
After facing off a bear, which strayed in to his camp, and then dealing with a Mr. Cassidy who is charged with cattle rustling, Judge John Goodnight (Luke Perry - Daughter of the Bride) is back on his travels again. It is during those travels he happens upon a stagecoach in trouble as it is under attack and being the decent man that he is comes to the rescue. It is how Goodnight meets Lucy Truffaut (Katharine Isabelle - Hostile Makeover), an attractive woman but one which makes him more than a little suspicious, a suspicion which is proved right when they end up on a gambling riverboat.
The opening scene of "Goodnight for Justice: Queen of Hearts" sets the tone for the movie with a scene which sees Goodnight scaring off a bear by standing toe to toe with the beast and growling. It is an utterly ridiculous scene as is the next as Goodnight finds himself presiding over a case involving one Mr. Cassidy accused of cattle rustling. It is trying to be amusingly clever with a Butch Cassidy reference but only ends up failing and feeling like padding, which raises alarm bells. And that is a problem because you are about 20 minutes into "Goodnight for Justice: Queen of Hearts" before we have John Goodnight coming to the rescue of the stagecoach and meeting the attractive Lucy. Now in fairness before that scene we do get to meet Lucy and becomes aware that she is a con artist with her fake money printing machines but again these scenes feel drawn out to fill time, not boring but not in truth needed.
Not in truth needed, sad to say that is how I feel about "Goodnight for Justice: Queen of Hearts" as a whole as whilst I really enjoy Luke Perry playing the humorous character of Judge Goodnight the rest of this movie is a nothing ness. The story is slow; the action whilst decent when it comes is too fleeting and the humour is uncomfortably dominant this time around. Not only that but the acting from the supporting cast leaves a lot too be desired as it tends to feel forced, more forced than it needed to be.
What this all boils down to is that "Goodnight for Justice: Queen of Hearts" is a real struggle due to a storyline which seems out weighed by a lot of padding. The only good thing about this third movie in the "Goodnight for Justice" series is that Luke Perry certainly feels at home in this sort of western.
