Main cast: Kellan Lutz (Sheriff Luke Easton), Cam Gigandet (John Sites), Niko Foster (Jim Barnes), Guillermo Ivan (Fernando Carrillo), Chad Michael Collins (Jack Danes), Helena Haro (Cheyenne Gomez), Texas Battle (Deputy Sal Read), Mike Ferguson (Ezra Craft), and Peter Nikkos (Kitcher Morris)
Director: Marty Murray

Newly elected Sheriff Luke Easton, who has a traumatic flashback revealed early on through some “flashback thoughts” of some stills of a young lady with flashing yellow line borders, and his deputy have to look into a dead body found inside a vehicle. 

Because Luke is from that place, old issues flare anew. Jack Sites is very bitter that he had worked hard to be the sheriff only for Luke, who in the past had shot a girl and been a drunk, to walk right into that post. Still, there is some consolation, such as a developing romance with Cheyenne Gomez.

Oh, and perhaps Luke has his own secrets that could put him on the wrong side of the law?

Now, Kellan Lutz and Cam Gigandet headlining a movie together? Desert Dawn is going to be either a train wreck of entertaining proportions or an excruciating one, because these two tend to have an unerring instinct to pick movie roles that no other mortals have the testicular fortitude to step into. 

However, those two are also very easy on the eyes, so I am always falling for their pretty faces like the sucker that I am, sigh.

Fortunately, this movie isn’t a painful watch. Unfortunately, it’s not horrible-awesome either.

If the plot synopsis makes this movie seem like every other generic “prodigal son comes back to town, solves crime, beat up people, find girlfriend and find redemption” movie out there, that’s because it is. It follows the tropes very faithfully, so there aren’t many things here that are surprising or suspenseful.

Worse, the script is very self-conscious about what it wants to do and doesn’t trust the readers to completely get its intention, so the main characters tend to deliver long monologues to one another that serve as exposition dump about their past and feelings. There is no build up and suspense. The moment a character’s issue comes up, everyone in the scene will yell and talk out in long information dumps about their past, their feelings, and everything else until there is actually nothing new to discover about the main characters by the first half an hour. 

So, is this movie worth watching?

Well, Kellan Lutz lacks the gravitas and screen “heaviness” to carry off the lead role, but he is very pretty and the screen seems to light up each time he smiles, which is quite often. 

Cam Gigandet is still hot as ever, but sadly, his role is a goody-goody guy when he’s much more effective playing hot psychos. Come on, Hollywood, when are you guys going to cat him and Warren Kole as hot psychos? Mr Lutz can tag along too as long as he smiles a lot and takes off his shirt every ten minutes. 

Unfortunately, Helena Haro has that very ubiquitous “I have way too many fillers in my face” look going on, so I keep getting distracted by her face each time she is on screen. It’s like she’s hoping that the casting people will squint and mistake her for Megan Fox or any of the other “filler overboard” ladies in Hollywood. Still, folks that dig that look can have her as the eye candy, I guess. Heaven knows, this movie doesn’t have many interesting things going for it.

So yes, Kellan Lutz is pretty, Cam Gigandet is hot, and this movie is fortunately rather forgettable instead of plainly awful. I’d take that as a win as far as these two gentlemen are concerned.