- A child's parents are killed by a vicious land-grabber but years later the child grows into a man ready for revenge.
- When greedy land-grabber, Bloomington, destroys his family, Isaiah, knows nothing about the world, but vows to someday get revenge. He learns about good and evil by being forced to rob a bank and then capturing the gang. He learns how to live off the land from Otter Bob, the "Best Mountain Man in Texas". He learns about friendship and loyalty after saving the life of Cortina, the "Hero of the Mexican People". He learns how to shoot from Nat Love. He learns about love from Stagecoach Mary. It finally comes down to a showdown with the notorious Undertaker, who's working for Bloomington. But, there's something about The Undertaker that makes this worse since there's a rumor the he killed Isaiah's brother, Jedediah.—AzRanger
- 10 year old Isaiah saw the rest of his family killed by Bloomington. Years later, klutzy Isaiah sees Bloomington again and decides to get even. With the aid of an old drunk former gunfighter, Otter Bob, he trains and trains till he is good enough to take on Bloomington. But Bloomington who has heard of Isaiah's plan, (who now calls himself 'The Cherokee Kid') hires a gunfighter named The Undertaker to stop The Kid.—Brian W Martz <B.Martz@Genie.com>
- It is high noon in Larabee, Texas and Isaiah Turner (Sinbad), known as The Cherokee Kid, is about to face The Undertaker (Gregory Hines) a deadly gunfighter, in a gunfight. The two shoots at each other but The Undertaker proves to be quicker and kills The Cherokee Kid. The Undertaker then requests that the Kid have a proper burial before anyone can move on to attend other businesses.
At the funerals, the Reverend asks the audience for somebody to say a few words about the deceased. Juan Cortina (A.Martinez), a man who rode with the Kid in many of his adventures, volunteers to tell the tale of The Cherokee Kid.
It all starts in Oklahoma territory where a group of men are forcing the local people to sell their lands for cheap in order to build a railroad project. Isaiah and Jedediah Turner are running to their mother to let her know that Jedediah has just killed the man who previously killed their father following his refusal to sell his land. Knowing that the men are coming for revenge, their mother quickly lays down a plan in which she hides Isaiah and pretends to shoot Jedediah in front of the men so he can run away. She engages the men in a shoot out but dies in front of Isaiah when a man called Bloomington (James Coburn) shoots her dead. Fortunately, Isaiah is able to run away when a man called Bonner (Mark Pellegrino) just gives up the chase and lets everyone believe he killed him. Isaiah runs for many days and many nights until he collapses exhausted on the lap of a reverend's wife who was childless. The Reverend and his wife agree to take him in and raise him as their own.
Isaiah grows up being obsessed with ideas of revenge against Bloomington and Bonner. The Reverend and his wife try to dissuade him several times but Isaiah refuses to let go. Eighteen years later, Isaiah has grown up into a tall and large man but quite clumsy. One day, as he's gathering groceries at the nearest town, he finds a poster advertising a public speech in Pinedale from the now mayor of El Paso, Texas, Bloomington. Isaiah decides to pay Bloomington a visit and end it once and for all. His adoptive parents try to talk him out of it but Isaiah is adamant that he needs to do this and leaves anyway, although it is made quite clear that he has no sense of direction and doesn't know how to ride a horse.
Isaiah quickly runs out of food, his adoptive mother having given him just one sandwich for the road, expecting him to turn around and come back. He sees a wild turkey and tries to catch it but he's a lame hunter. He finally catches the turkey as it enters a wooden shack when he is interrupted by a man trying to get a freebie from a prostitute who refuses to service the man for free. Isaiah hides under the bed but the turkey makes too much noise and the man finds him. The man tries to shoot Isaiah but Isaiah throws the turkey at him which causes the man to accidentally shoot himself with his own gun and dies. To thank him for saving her, the prostitute agrees to prepare and cook the turkey for him. Isaiah finds out the man was called Jake Carver and decides to take his gun belt and guns with him. He then reveals he is also lame at gun handling. The next morning, Isaiah wakes up to find the woman is gone and she took the turkey leftovers with her. He is about to leave himself when a group of mean looking men enter the shack. Isaiah first pretends to be Jake Carver but the men are actually Jake Carver's gang and one of them finds Carver's body outside. Isaiah then talks his way out by convincing the men he is a childhood friend of Carver and they were supposed to meet up to plan a bank robbery in Pinedale when the prostitute killed Jake. The gang decides to honor Jake's memory and rob the bank. They force Isaiah to join them.
At the Pinedale bank, Isaiah talks nicely to the teller, allowing him plenty of time to notice the outlaws standing in the back. He then screams "These men are here to rob the bank" causing all the bank employees to pull a gun and point it at the gang, arresting all of them except Isaiah who's considered responsible for the capture of the Jake Carver gang. Bonner then shows up to reward Isaiah for the capture, not recognizing him. Isaiah takes out his adoptive father's rusty old gun to try and shoot Bonner but the gun just crumbles in his hands. Isaiah then grabs a small gun from a man standing nearby and shoots Bonner in one of his butt cheek before running away. As he runs, he hears the voice of Bloomington giving his speech. Isaiah interrupts the speech and tries to shoot Bloomington but the small gun is now empty. Isaiah is able to escape Bloomington's men by jumping into a man's passing cart that had fur covers to hide under. Bloomington then confronts Bonner about his lies from years ago and offers a $1,000 reward for Isaiah's body.
Isaiah rides under the covers until the man driving the cart stops for a fake pee break. The man turns out to be the infamous Mountain Man Otter Bob (Burt Reynolds). When Bob finds out Isaiah knows how to read, he agrees to train Isaiah to become a mountain man in exchange for teaching him how to read his dirty books. For the next several months, Isaiah rides with Otter Bob and learns how to hunt, fish, shoot a riffle, throw axes and knives, set up traps and drink whiskey. Although he is still clumsy at times, he learns quickly.
Meanwhile, Bonner and his men have been tracking down Isaiah for months and finally catches up to him and Bob. Having been expecting them, Bob sits in front of a fire while Isaiah hides in nearby bushes. Bob knocks down Bonner while Isaiah kills his men with axes and knives. Bonner pulls out his gun and shoots at Isaiah but Bob steps in front of him and takes the bullet instead. Isaiah lures Bonner into a bear trap, promising to take care of him some other day, and then grabs Bob and flees. Unfortunately, Bob dies in his arms and Isaiah buries him under a tree.
As he now pursues his journey alone, Isaiah stumbles upon Juan Cortina, a loudmouth, self-proclaimed Mexican hero, having been completely buried in the sand of the desert from the neck down and left out to burn up and die. Isaiah saves him from his predicament which causes Cortina to vow on his honor that he will follow Isaiah and protect him until he is able to save his life in return. Isaiah refuses and tries to outrun Cortina but he is still a lousy horse rider. He reluctantly agrees just to shut him up.
The two of them makes it to El Paso where they end up in the same saloon as Bonner who spots Isaiah from afar. Using a local girl as distraction, Bonner lures Isaiah into a trap and arrests him. In prison, he meets the legendary outlaw gunslinger Nat Love (Ernie Hudson) quietly awaiting to get hanged in the morning. He is also confronted by Bloomington who declares Isaiah to be hanged the following day. Isaiah promises Bloomington that he will come back from the dead just to kill him to which Bloomington laughs and leaves. Isaiah then mentions his brother Jedediah which causes Nat Love to reveal that he knew Jedediah and that he was killed in a gun fight against a dangerous man called The Undertaker. Isaiah then swears he will kill The Undertaker too.
Later that night, Cortina shows up and breaks Isaiah and Nat out of prison. Cortina considers having paid his debt to Isaiah but then Isaiah shoots down a man that was aiming at Cortina, saving his life again. Cortina resumes his vow to follow Isaiah. They follow Nat to his hideout because he stole Isaiah's horse on his way out. Nat reluctantly agrees to shelter Isaiah for a few days with his gang in return for breaking him out of jail. Seeing how bad Isaiah is at gun slinging, Nat decides to teach him properly, if only for his gang's safety. Once again, Isaiah picks up quickly and becomes quite skilled at gun slinging fast with both hands. Nat then tries to teach him how to ride a horse but Isaiah still doesn't get it. When Nat tells him that riding a horse is like being with a woman, Isaiah reveals he is still a virgin. One of the gang members, Stagecoach Mary (Dawnn Lewis) decides to fix that and takes him to a secluded area where she forces him to have sex with her. When Isaiah comes out later, he gets on a horse easily and now knows how to ride properly. The gang then have a meeting to choose a good outlaw name for Isaiah. After much debating, Nat names him The Cherokee Kid in honor of Isaiah's father who was half Cherokee.
Now with a new name, new skills and a new look, the Love gang takes the Kid to his first real bank robbery which goes smoothly. The Kid stays behind to deter anyone from following them and shoots his way out perfectly without hurting anyone. Feeling he is now ready to act out his plans for revenge, Isaiah parts ways with Nat Love and his gang, thanking him for all he thought him.
Now that Bloomington is fully aware of Isaiah's intentions and knowing he won't be able to approach him easily, Isaiah takes Cortina's advice and decides to make Bloomington come to him instead. To get his attention, under his new Cherokee Kid moniker, he pulls a series of well publicized bank robberies all aimed at Bloomington's banks. Bloomington doesn't take long to get angry and summons a dozen of mercenaries to chase after The Cherokee Kid. One of them is the cold-blooded Undertaker who puts everyone on notice that The Cherokee Kid belongs to him.
On their way to Larabee, Kid and Cortina are welcomed into a house for dinner by a family of fans. One of the girls, Abby (Vanessa Bell Calloway), catches Kid's eye even though she is rather hostile to him. When the father reveals that the bounty for Kid is now $5,000, Abby knocks both Kid and Cortina out with a frying pan hoping to convince her family to cash in on the bounty in order to keep their land from Bloomington. The Cherokee Kid wakes up and leaves the house easily, leaving a bag of gold behind. Abby tries to shoot him down but misses. Abby's father then reveals that he has never seen Abby miss anything before and she replies awkwardly that it was dark.
The next day, The Cherokee Kid arrives in Larabee looking for Bloomington. He meets up with one of the mercenaries whom he defeats easily. He then tells him to find The Undertaker and let him know he has an appointment with The Cherokee Kid at high noon the very next day. The Kid then goes back to Abby to exchange a few friendly banters.
Back at the funerals, as Cortina is wrapping up his story, Bonner enters the church, tired of waiting and demanding that the Kid gets buried right now so they can move on to other businesses. The people in the church, mostly Kid's friends and family carries his coffin out to the burial site. The Undertaker then decides to say a few words to finish the story of what went down the day before, to the crowd's utmost displeasure. He reveals the conversation he had with Kid before they shot each other. Although they hadn't seen each others for almost twenty years, Isaiah quickly understood that The Undertaker did not kill his brother Jedediah but that The Undertaker is his brother Jedediah. The Undertaker then opens up the coffin revealing Isaiah very much alive and armed, making good on his promise to Bloomington that he will come back from the dead to kill him. A shoot out ensues between Bloomington's men and The Cherokee Kid's friends. Abby grabs a riffle and starts shooting people down. Kid saves Cortina one more time. Nat Love saves Kid before getting shot down. The Cherokee Kid and The Undertaker then join forces and shoot down everyone in their sight. Kid then goes after Bloomington whom he finally kills while his brother kills Bonner.
The Love gang, along with Kid, Cortina, Abby and Jedediah attends Nat Love's burial. As they're leaving, Jed explains that he got into troubles years earlier and applied what he learned from their mothers. He killed himself and became The Undertaker. Having avenged his dead parents and found his long lost brother, Isaiah decides to keep riding as The Cherokee Kid because he likes it and cares to find some new wrongs to fix. Using Cortina's vow against him, he persuades his Mexican friend to follow him some more. The Cherokee Kid then gets on his horse and rides West to some new adventures with his brother Jedediah aka The Undertaker, his friend Juan Cortina and his soon to be girlfriend Abby.
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