Wanted: Dead or Alive was a popular western TV show from the fifties starring Steve McQueen. It told the story of Josh Randall, a Confederate war veteran and bounty hunter. It ran for three seasons and is mainly notable for launching the career of its star. The 1987 action movie, Wanted Dead or Alive, starring Rutger Hauer, tenuously links to the television show, however that’s where the similarities end. Ex-CIA operative turned bounty hunter Nick Randall (Hauer) at one point shares a brief anecdote about a Grandfather who used to tell him tall tales of the old west. That is the only reference to the television show that the movie makes. Beyond that, Wanted: Dead or Alive is pretty much a standard eighties action film with a better than average script and cast of supporting actors. It also features the decades most ubiquitous plot device, the stereotypical group of fanatical Arab terrorists.