Ransom Canyon, review: this inadvertently hilarious cowboy romance is no Yellowstone

Telegraph

17-04-2025

Netflix's new cowboy series, Ransom Canyon, will come as a serious eye-opener to anyone raised on John Wayne or Clint Eastwood. The 10-part drama is a rootin' tootin' foray into 'cowboy romance' – a hugely popular genre that prioritises sizzling snogs over 10-gallon stetsons and where the heroes pack a lot more than six-shooters.
The show is adapted from a sequence of bestselling novels by Jodi Thomas. It is fair to say her evocation of the outlaw spirit of the American West is unlikely to be mistaken for the Second Coming of Cormac McCarthy. Five minutes in, and we've already been treated to a close-up of Josh Duhamel's glum yet hunky hero having a shower – his pecs salivated over the way the London skyline is in the opening credits to The Apprentice.
Duhamel's character is named Staten Kirkland – and while that sounds like an anagram for something rude, he's strictly mid-table when it comes to the show's power ranking of protagonists with absurdist aliases. Barely has Staten towelled himself down and re-affixed his hat (it is a surprise he wasn't wearing it in the shower) than we are introduced to a newcomer to the story's modern-day, small-town Texas setting who goes by Yancy Grey (Jack Schumacher).
There is also Staten's son Randall (Hubert Smielecki) – though his comic-book moniker is soon revealed to be the least of his problems when his life takes a turn for the tragic and the villainous Davis Collins (Irish actor Eoin Macken, wrestling with the Texas accent like a cowboy trying to put manners on a steer). The biggest star, Hollywood veteran James Brolin, gets off lightly with a grumpy rancher named Cap Fuller.
Early coverage of Ransom Canyon has compared it to Yellowstone, the recently concluded Kevin Costner love letter to the Western spirit that built America. But where Yellowstone was often brutal in its depiction of the life of the 21st-century cowboy, Ransom Canyon is pure fantasy. It is a world where Staten can spend years carrying a flame for Minka Kelly's Quinn O'Grady, the best friend of his late wife, without ever making a move. And where Quinn is willing to go on a date with Davis – Staten's loathsome brother-in-law – while fancying the cowboy boots off Duhamel's character.
Romance fans will lap it up. Everyone else may wonder if they aren't watching a comedy that has misplaced its laugh track. The dialogue is often guffaw-out-loud funny. 'Was it ever real, you and me?' Quinn asks Staten at one point, while the Mills & Boon-meter heads into the red zone when she declares, 'You've had a piece of my heart for as long as I can remember.'
A handful of chaste love scenes are equally giggle-worthy. One especially chucklesome tryst is soundtracked by the Smashing Pumpkins' Tonight Tonight and interspersed with scenes of townsfolk fleeing a hurricane. The earth is moving for all involved.
To the script's credit, it tacks on a serviceable plot involving an evil water company trying to force Staten off his land. Connected to this is a mystery around a suspicious death. But it's ultimately all window dressing, and the show only properly cranks into gear when Duhamel and Kelly are on screen together. The actors are gruffly charismatic, and their chemistry is genuine. But you wish their characters would just get a room and that Ransom Canyon busied itself with something more interesting than the dreariest will they/won't they storyline since Jon Snow kissed his aunt in Game of Thrones.