TV REVIEWS : ‘Cisco Kid’ Is Back With Jimmy Smits

The Cisco Kid, that dashing caballero and Robin Hood of the Old West who filled kids’ imaginations for half a century, is back.

Thirty-eight years after the popular television series with Duncan Renaldo and Leo Carrillo ceased production, “The Cisco Kid” has risen from the dust bin of grinning heroes to come riding into your screen (Sunday at 5, 7 and 9 p.m. on TNT cable).

Jimmy Smits, with an easy swagger and light romantic panache, proves a stylish match for the legion of Cisco predecessors, who include Warner Baxter, Cesar Romero, Gilbert Roland and Renaldo--an enduring legacy that began with silent one-reelers inspired by a character created by O. Henry in a short story called “The Caballero’s Way,” published in the collection “Hearts of the West” (1904). Cheech Marin portrays Cisco’s sidekick and comic foil, Pancho.

Without detracting too much from Cisco movie lore, this new “Kid” on the block shows true signs of the ‘90s. Director and co-writer Luis Valdez (“Zoot Suit,” “La Bamba”) has eliminated the bandido stereotype entirely. Like Batman, Cisco is independently wealthy and doesn’t have to steal from anybody.

Instead, in this movie, set in 1867 in Mexico, he helps peasants defeat the racist French occupation forces and preserve the provisional government under Mexican national hero Benito Juarez (whom Valdez himself plays).

The plot bogs down toward the end; it is, after all, a “Perils of Pauline”-like cartoon. But here, in a rare instance, is a TV movie for Latino families that Latino children can warm up to. And not only them. After all, it was white audiences that made the Cisco Kid at least as popular as the Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. There’s that devilish, rakish streak that distinguishes Cisco from the white bread. It’s not for nothing that his mount is named Diablo.