The Cowboy Way

The Cowboy Way follows two rodeo champions from New Mexico, Pepper Lewis and Sonny Gilstrap, who travel to New York City to track down a friend, Nacho Salazar, after he vanishes there. The friends have little in common and bicker constantly, and their small-town ways stand out sharply in the city. Their search draws them into the dealings of a criminal organization involved in smuggling immigrants, and a local police officer assists them as they work out what happened to the missing man and his daughter.

Gregg Champion directed the film, his first feature, from a screenplay by William D. Wittliff; Brian Grazer produced it for Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment. Woody Harrelson plays Pepper and Kiefer Sutherland plays Sonny, with Dylan McDermott, Ernie Hudson, Marg Helgenberger and Luis Guzmán in supporting roles. The production had a budget of 35 million dollars and took in about 20 million dollars worldwide.

Audience response was mixed but not dismissive: it holds a rating of 6 out of 10 on IMDb, based on roughly 9,800 votes, and 5.7 out of 10 on TMDB from about 170 votes. A critics' rating of 4.2 out of 10, drawn from 15 reviews, sits below both audience scores. Champion returned to directing with Amish Grace in 2010.