A chiseled cowboy between jobs and a newly widowed farm wife he takes a message to means a ranch in need of tending and a woman in need of a man around the house in “Where the Wind Blows,” a handsomely mounted Western shot on Montana’s Yellowstone Film Ranch.

It’s a good thing the visuals in this John Schimke horse opera are striking. There’s not much else to recommend a sloppily-plotted meander through Western tropes and cliches which pedestrian direction, shooting and editing do nothing to rescue.

Trevor Donovan, best known for the “90210” reboot of a dozen years back, is our blond hunk on horseback, named Chase (of course) and charged with taking care of a fellow ranch hand’s “heirloom” and cash roll. Because when ol’Nathan (C. Thomas Howell) sits down to gamble at the local saloon/brothel, he’d hate to get rolled.

Gunshots awaken chaste Chase — he’s fended off the advances of the prostitutes — and he finds Nate dead, caught cheating at cards. There’s nothing for it but to take that news to far-off Jessie (Ashley Elaine).

He’s not much on comforting someone who learns her husband is dead, although he’s considerate enough to lie about Nathan’s cause of death.

“These things have a way of working themselves out” isn’t what you say to a woman left to fend for herself on the wild frontier.

And that roll of cash and “heirloom?” That becomes one of the more clumsily-handled plot devices I’ve ever seen in a Western. Did Chase “forget” to give it to her? Is he keeping it for his own use? Motives and “secrets” don’t take us toward any satisfying answers.

All we know is that Jessie has a girl from the orphange she herself came from on her way with a guardian (Don Swayze) to see if she’s fit to raise the child. Will Chase pretend to be Nathan, just long enough to ensure the adoption?

Events contrive to make the possibly thieving cowboy do just that, and accept a teen orphan boy (Cole Keriazakos) in the bargain, with the promise that he’ll skeedaddle as soon as the guardian leaves. Jessie is supposed to manage this place with two kids, no livestock and the kindness of her intrepid storekeeper pal (Michelle Hurd).

And then there’s the creepy, sunglasses-wearing drifter (Rob Mayes) with a rapist vibe who has taken to stalking her with a vengeance.

Will Chase stick around? Is he up for a showdown with rapey Lonnie? And how many chores can he do with his shirt off as he does?

Based on what I am guessing is a romance novel by Caroline Fyffe, “Where the Wind Blows” has the tone and light messaging of a faith-based romance. Characters are sketched in as archetypes, most every turn of events leans on coincidence and cliche and the picture never lets us forget that director Schimke is out of his element, if he has one.

The cast is game but rather drab — even the villains.

And we never doubt for a second that as messy and violent as this tale turns, “these things have a way of working themselves out,” and not in any way a more cleverly plotted script would have delivered.

Rating: PG-13, bloody violence, attempted sexual assault, prostitution

Cast: Trevor Donovan, Ashley Elaine, Michelle Hurd, Rob Mayes, Cole Keriazakos, Lochlyn Munro, Don Swayze and C. Thomas Howell.

Credits: Directed by John Schimke, scripted Mike Maden and John Schimke, based on a novel by Caroline Fyffe. A Level 33 release.

Running time: 1:31