Yep, I didn’t especially rate this one either. The very definition of by-the-numbers, and I was really hoping for a little more from Jon Cassar and the Sutherlands. I did enjoy the shootout at the end though.
Pale Rider - Clint Eastwood (1986)
Story, dialogues and characters are a bit thin in this good looking but pale variation of some Shane motives. Eastwood’s directing is too often mediocre, and somehow he also has miscast himself. The obvious (and uninspired) Spag influences clash with the simple moralistic tone of the film, as simple as its political and ecological undertones, or its affected religious context. The often very dark photography looks good though. All in all not as bad as it sounds, but less interesting than it should be. Still for me Eastwood’s weakest western as director. 5/10
High Plains Drifter & The Outlaw Josey Wales didn’t impress me much, so I’m in no hurry to see Pale Rider.
Unforgiven is good, but I don’t rate it anywhere near as high as a lot of people.
I suppose it fits here because of the subject matter. Last night I re-watched a strange sort of documentary I first viewed in 2009-- “Requiem for Billy the Kid.” I found it most notable for its spectacular photography of Lincoln County and the country still haunted by and obsessed with Billy the Kid and the presence in the film of some old guys who were direct descendants of participants in the story, like the great-grandson of Hijiño Salazar, all still living in the area.
3.5/5 (deductions for weirdness, such as the PG&BtK screenwriter still bitching about Nixon 30 years later and a running voice-over conversation between the female director from France and an old Kris Kristofferson reprising his Billy the Kid role)
I am just starting a re-watch of “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid” (2005 version). I must confess a love/hate relationship with this film and try to remember that this is not a history or a documentary, but it’s hard sometimes.
With all the fascinating real historical figures available why the fictional goofy Dylan character?
The soundtrack should have been based on the Spanish guitar. These people were not 1960s hippies.
The starting date should be 1880, not 1881, based on events depicted. Garrett did not go to Fort Sumner to warn Billy. He got there first with a posse and set up an ambush, killing Tom O’Folliard. On December 23rd Billy was captured (along with a few others, including infamous outlaw Dave Rudabaugh, not alone) at Stinking Spring(s) when Garrett followed their tracks in the snow. See, I get cranky about this stuff.
Beautiful to look at, though, and I understand what Peckinpah was doing with the basic material and his theme.
I just saw this:
“I’ll throw in another $1.60 if you’ll dig it out of Old Bob there.” Haha! Witnesses at the scene mentioned that line.
L. Q. Jones played a real named outlaw who was hanged around the turn of the century, not shot by Garrett. And no, Garrett was a fairly recent arrival in New Mexico Territory, not there for “15 years.” And what’s with the “old man”/“getting old” stuff? Garrett was 30 when this movie began. Ok, I’ll shut up now.
Peckinpah’s film is luckily not a history lesson. 
But you know that,
Actually I never expect any kind of historic accuracy when I watch westerns. Westerns are generally set in a fantasy west, and some thrown in aspects of “realism” are only good to add to the atmosphere in some films.
2 Likes
Yes, I agree, otherwise the SWs would drive me crazy and I’d dislike them instead of loving them.
“Heaven’s Gate” is much farther away from the history it depicts than PG&BtK but it doesn’t bother me at all. This is probably because I feel much, much closer to the Lincoln County story.
I think Kristofferson did a very fine job as did Coburn, but Garrett’s descendants probably hated his portrayal.
Last western (sort of) I saw was Anna Biller short film A Visit from the Incubus (2001). Weird musical/horror/comedy/western from this extremely talented young director who also plays the main role.
Tried to watch Boot Hill but i had to switch it off before the end. I can’t just stand the film.
Also original 3:10 to Yuma. A good one.
Boot Hill looks terrible, and the original 3:10 to Yuma is one of my favourite US Westerns.
The Beguiled (2017)
I didn’t like this remake with Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman of the Don Siegel/Clint Eastwood Civil War drama by Sofia Coppola. Nothing much happens through out, which made this film very dull and boring and some scenes was too dark it needed some brightness. Pffft!
Justice (2017)
A U.S. Marshal seeking justice for his brother’s murder defends a small town from a corrupt Mayor and his henchmen with intents to revive the civil war.
This was garbage, it was badly directed and the standard of acting was very poor. Stephen Lang for his part was okayish, but the script and the dialogue was really pathetic.
There seems to be a ton of these recent wannabe westerns around, many of them turning up on the movies4men channel - and what they all seem to have in common is, bad acting, bad script, bad direction and full of clichés.
They remind me of the type of drek played out by re-enactment societies - ‘Grown ups’ playing cowboys and Indians - embarrassing and a waste of everyone’s time.
2 Likes
At Gunpoint, 1955, disappoints. Fred MacMurray is a peaceful store-clerk. When the town bank is robbed and the gang is riding-away, exchanging gunfire with some of the citizens, MacMurray amateurishly fires a ‘lucky shot’ that kills the gang-leader from a long, long distance.
The town mistakes him for an accomplished marksman. Of course, writer Dan Ullman has MacMurray’s character unable to explain the lucky shot. As if the entire West are surviving by being ‘bad shots’.
You can guess the rest. The town elects MacMurray sheriff. His wife and kid know he’s an amateur. So does Doc (Walter Brennan in his most under-used role ever) and the store-helper, who looks exactly like MacMurray.
Audience-warning… the store-helper is killed by the robbers, who think he’s MacMurray. You could predict that was going to happen 45-minutes ahead of time.
Just like you could predict the robbers were sticking-around ‘for revenge’, even though they have piles of money. Ridiculous. 3-out-of-10.
I thought At Gunpoint was an interesting little western from an interesting but too unknown director of some westerns.
I watched it a while ago on You Tube, also thought it was an interesting little western
Werker’s best western, he shot them all within 2 or 3 years, is The Last Posse.
I also recently watched Rebel in Town, which suffers from a highly inconsequent ending.
Another Dan Ullman-script… Canyon River, 1956, in which I made a bet with myself during the opening-credits… There won’t be a ‘canyon’ and there won’t be a ‘river’. Only non-intrinsic shots of canyons and rivers. I was right.
The film starts-out with a huge plot-palpitation: Peter Graves is already plotting to kill and rob his friend-and-boss, George Montgomery for no believable reason. He tells a crooked land-baron that he’s “tired of being good.”
Meanwhile, for no believable reason, Montgomery has decided that Wyoming Winters are bad for Texas-cattle… so he sells his ranch and travels to Oregon on a cattle-buying trip, then will bring them back to breed with transplanted Texas-cattle. -All because he saw one halfbreed calf walking in Spring-snow.
The flaw is that Oregon Winters are slightly less milder than Texas Winters, so the cattle’s durability is the same The jet-stream brings the Arctic storms down over the Wyoming side of the Rockies. Intelligent audience-members know that Wyoming-cattlemen actually solved the Winter-problem by introducing cattle from Scotland.
Anyway, Graves makes a deal with the baron to split Montgomery’s herd after killing Montgomery on the drive back from Oregon. Of course, Graves has a change of heart as Ullman.concocts smarmy situations to show what a great guy Montgomery is. Graves tries to stop the ambush, but is killed by the baddies, who’re subsequently killed by a stampede… which is actually a collage of non-intrinsic shots of a stampede. The film rates a relatively awful 4-out-of-10. .
Comin At Ya! - jeez, that overuse of slow motion and everything pointing at a viewer, because we are making stupid 3D film is annoying as hell. But even besides that, this late spaghie is actually quite dull (dumb too) and derivative from start to the end - or just plain ridiculous. Those bats. What the fuck was that? 
The charm of previous Vanzi/Baldi/Anthony co-op is absent, so don’t expect something like fifth Stranger film, because this is a rather different approach. Like more boring different approach.
Massacre Canyon, 1954… much more satisfyingly influential to the SW genre, because the plot is multi-layered and the characters have dozens of directions to choose from at any given moment. In fact, the top characters have 2-or-3 names and identities… resulting in the movie’s high re-watchability factor.
It’s all about three shady Cavalry-troopers and 2-wagonloads of rifles disguised as ‘supplies’, being smuggled-through Apache territory. And party about a stop at a ‘trading-post’, involving a peddler, who’s really a gunrunner trying to become a seller-of-white-women, the women themselves, who aren’t aware they’re being sold… a drunken Cavalry-officer who may be faking being a deserter, and a ‘Mexican’ hostess or ‘wife’, who is actually an Apache spy.
Guest-starring Guinn Williams in one of his best roles, with one of the best nicknames ever: Peaceful.
The ending canyon-shootout is sensational and logical to the authenticity of the backdrop that David Lang’s script presents. I rate the film a 7-out-of-10. Interest-sustaining.