“Outlaw Posse” is a scruffy, old school blaxploitation Western from Mario Van Peebles, son of iconic African American filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles, who put the “Black” in blaxploitation, back in his “Sweet Sweetback’s BADASSSSS Song” day.

Mario V. P. charmed a lot of co-stars into mounting up for another movie reminder that the Old West wasn’t as John Wayne white as it has traditionally been portrayed. As with his 1993 Western “Posse,” this is a movie as intent on delivering a history lesson as it is on entertaining.

But the lessons here are heavy-handed, because while only one character stops the narrative cold with a “How about a little history?” suggestion, such pauses run right through to the anti-climactic climax. That weighs down the blazing shoot-outs, dance-hall girl come-ons, chases and trash talk.

“Take your Aboriginal Ass back to Africa!” “I ain’t killed nobody in a month!”

Van Peebles is “Chief,” given a heroic, backlit, super-sized-sombrero introduction by…himself — he also wrote-and-directed this. Chief is a gunman in a border town cantina who sticks up for a Native American against a punk gunslinger (Cam Gigandet) and his accomplices (Neal McDonough and M. Emmet Walsh).

No, “I got nothin’ against darkies” won’t get you off the hook when you start something.

Chief has re-crossed the border for a reason, a reason the one-handed outlaw king Angel (William Mapother) is most certainly interested in.

Chief will have to assemble a gang, an “outlaw posse,” to evade Angel’s outlaw posse. Gunslinger Southpaw (Jake Manley), dynamite fiend Carson (John Carroll Lynch), whiteface comic Spooky (D.C. Young Fly) and sex-worker Queenie (Amber Reign Smith) join up.

And Chief’s long-estranged son Decker (Mandela Van Peebles, Mario’s son) rides along as well. But Angel is the one who recruited him, to help Angel track down Chief and that buried Confederate gold he’s after. Decker’s musician wife (Madison Calley) is being held hostage until he delivers his father to Angel.

They stage a hold-up, get caught in a shoot-out and a chase or two, and track north through the Old West, meeting figures both historic and fictional on their way to a showdown.

While there are anachronisms in the speech, the historical figures — included hard-nosed mail driver Stagecoach Mary (Whoopi Goldberg), boxer Jack Johnson and the founders of the oldest Chinese restaurant in the United States — are real people, often erased from American history and the myth of the Old West.

But this isn’t “history.” It’s a movie. They turn a Black saloon into a 1908 juke joint at one point. Buthc and Sundance references are both historical and meant for amusement. And “dynamite” is a dead giveaway that your Western isn’t all that serious.

While Van Peebles is to be commended for his history lessons, for knowing how to film (with one impressively long take) a good shoot-out and chase, “Outlaw Posse” is at its heart cornball and old fashioned and entirely too wedded to its good intentions and self-righteousness.

A stop by a utopian racial settlement is just an excuse to give Cedric the Entertainer a scene or two and a lecture on tolerance. And everything from the “getting the gang together” bits to the shopkeeper (Edward James Olmos) they meet and chat up, to the arbitrary stagecoach ride from Stagecoach Mary is clumsily introduced. The narrative doesn’t flow, and some scenes seem superfluous or at least poorly set-up.

Mapother is a passable villain-on-a-tight budget, and the almost-ageless Van Peebles has always had great screen presence.

But this “Posse” is never much more than a mixed-bag — sometimes entertaining, sometimes pedantic, and never as quick or as nimble on its feet as it needs to be to come off.

Rating: R, violence, profanity, nudity

Cast: Mario Van Peebles, William Mapother, Amber Reign Smith, Mandela Van Peebles, John Carroll Lynch, D.C. Young Fly, Madison Calley, with Edward James Olmos, M. Emmet Walsh, Cedric the Entertainer, Cam Gigandet, Neal McDonough and Whoopi Goldberg

Credits: Scripted and directed by Mario Van Peebles. A Quiver release.

Running time: 1:48