Richard Brooks had a big hit with The Professionals and went back to the well with another macho, male driven Western in a slightly odd time period (1906 or something like that) with a rousing score. This has neat photography and an interesting cast but you're bound to wonder "why should we care". The Professionals had clear stakes - kidnapped woman, cash. This is about a cross country race. You can give stakes to a race but Brooks can't crack the problem here.
There's two old mates Gene Hackman and James Coburn, and a callow kid (Jan Michael Vincent), and a hooker (Candice Bergen), a Brit (Ian Bannen), an old poke (Ben Johnson).
It needed more stakes. More character differential. There's some nice scenes and the actors are fine. The horses are pretty as is the scenery But I got lost what the race was about or why we should care or what was going on. Some robbers turn up and that perks things up because it's clear and clean what they want and the stakes are life and death.
At the end Hackman and Coburn cross the line together. It might mean more if we got a sense they were friends, or rivals, or brothers, or cared. Coburn's character could be removed. So could Johnson. Actually Johnson and Coburn could be merged.
Oh, I'm picking. I don't know. It was loud and pretty and kind of lifeless. Burt Reynolds and James Caan were going to be leads at one stage - they would've given the piece more urgency.
No comments:
Post a Comment