You know what’s better than watching a debate? Watching John Wayne kick ass. Word of warning: I love westerns, keep this in mind when reading the review.
So, basic plot: John Wayne arrests the bad dude at the very beginning of the movie and bad dudes buddies come guns ablazin’ to break him out of jail. Short on deputies and outgunned, John Wayne faces a desperate battle for etc…etc…. Sound a little familiar? It should because Rio Bravo, famously, is Howard Hawks and Wayne’s response to High Noon, which is of course one of the greatest movies in the universe. Basically, while all the townspeople ditch Gary Cooper in High Noon they offer to help John Wayne in Rio Bravo (although he turns them down in favor of Dino and Walter Brennan). Ignoring the underlying politics, which don’t really affect the film that much, the movie is pretty sweet.
The case is probably the best part of the film, John Wayne and Walter Brenan are as dependable as always (so is Ward Bond (who rules) in his all to brief role) and Dean Martin is pretty awesome as a recovering drunk (I’m pretty sure this character was the basis for Gene Wilder’s in Blazing Saddles). Unlike your average western (especially John Ford’s), the female character isn’t utterly useless and Angie Dickinson pulls it offer pretty well, even managing some chemistry with John Wayne, who is roughly a million years older than her. The only real problems with the cast are the stereotypical “kid” Colorado and the lack of a really menacing villain, which leads into my major complaint about the film. Where High Noon ratcheded up the tension throughout, there’s really no menance here. All the good guy gunfighters, minus Brenan, are portrayed as far too competant (especially once the drunk Dino gets over his little 3rd act crisis) for us to actually be worried about them. Basically, you’re just waiting to see how exactly the bad guys are going to end up dead. It’s a testament to the quality of the filmmaking and cast that the movie is still captivating throughout. If you’re into westerns at all, you should watch this movie…if you’re new to the genre it’s not that bad but I’d start with something like Stagecoach, Red River or High Noon first.
Oh, there’s also a painfully out of place Dean Martin (+whoever plays Colorado), musical number….I don’t really know what to say about it, but it’s there. Not a movie killer or anything….just there and totally out of place. Of course, completely out of place musical numbers are fairly common in films before the auteur era so it really shouldn’t be that unexpected.
p.s. I’m trying out Twitterfeed so all future blog posts should also end up on twitter.
