TinsHeadline Touches You

HeadlinesExotic Boring

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Freaktana A Major Disappointment

ma-cortes Thrilling story about a group of young people who join forces to be robbers , as they rob their way west but with unexpected consequences . This first-rate Western draws its riveting tale and power from the interaction of finely drawn roles as well as adventure and action . Good and enjoyable western with a great casting and two sensational starring , a very young Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown in a coming-of-age story . This exciting film packs Western action , go riding , thrills , emotion , shoot-outs and results to be quite entertaining . It contains a magnificent main cast as Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown facing off bandits (David Huddleston , Geoffey Lewis , Ed Lauer , among others) a tough sheriff(Jim Davis) and deputies ; in addition , a top-drawer support cast . This is a nice flick containing a little bit of charming humor about naively juvenile , friendship , violence and sense of comradeship among people . It's a sympathetic western , with a beautiful cinematography , attractive scenery from meadows and great soundtrack by piano . It deals with a god-fearing Ohio boy called Drew Dixon (Barry Brown) dodging the Civil War draft arrives in Jefferson City where he joins up with a hardscrabble group of like runaways heading west , being led by Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges) , a street-wise rebel . Both of them have wildly differing temperaments . Soon after, though, the drifter young finds out existence on the West is neither what he expected nor what he's been wishing . As the dangerous journey that turns out to be worst than expected , suffering attacks , hard-working activities , robbing , gun-play and many other things . Formidable as well as intriguing Western full of action , fascinating drama , crossfire and fabulous performances . It's a wonderful adventure film format "western" itinerant, filled with entertaining events , danger and life lessons . This exciting film packs good feeling as friendship , faithfulness , companionship and violence as well as touching scenes on the final . The screenplay , by David Newman , Robert Benton , is plain and simple but intelligent , with a conventional plot , but ultimately gets overcome . The picture belongs to Western sub-genre of the seventies about juvenile people , starred by teens or little boys such as ¨The Spikes gang¨ , ¨Marshal Cahill¨ , ¨The cowboys¨ and ¨The Culpepper Cattle Co¨. Gorgeous outdoors with decent production design by Paul Sylbert . Filmmaker gets to remain the Western emotion , moving scenes and suspense until the ending . The young starring player Barry Brown is very good , his role as an ingenuous and cultured young is top-notch , he performed similar character as a naive cowboy in other films however , he virtually disappeared without much trace until his suicide , as he shot himself to death . He was especially known for Daisy Miller (1974) , Piranha (1978) and this Bad company (1972). Sympathetic Jeff Bridges as gang leader , he steals the show as likable as well as two-fisted young gunslinger . According to Jeff Bridges the gunfight in the forest had to be completely re shot after the film was ruined in the lab . Secondary cast is extraordinary such as John Savage , David Huddleston , Jerry Houser , Jim Davis , Geoffrey Lewis , Jean Allison , Ed Lauter , John Quade and Charles Tyner . Cool cinematographer Gordon Willis prowls his camera splendidly through some wonderfully seedy , deserted landscapes . Evocative and atmospheric musical score composed by means of piano played by Harvey Schmidt. This Sleeper Western was well produced by Stanley R Jaffe and stunningly directed by Robert Benton , recreating compellingly this thrilling story ; being debut of Benton and whose most popular movie resulted to be ¨Kramer vs Kramer¨ . He is a writer and director, known for Kramer vs Kramer (1979), Nadine (1987) , Billy Bathgate (1991) , Nobody's Fool (1994) , Twilight (1998) , The human stain (2003), Feast of Love (2007) and wrote Superman (1978) and Bonnie y Clyde (1967). This much underrated Civil War era Western is rated above average ; being essential and indispensable watching for Western genre fans . Enjoyable scenarios , interesting script , nice performances and gorgeous outdoors make this well worth seeing .

zardoz-13 "Bad Company" qualifies as a modest, offbeat, revisionist western. No, this unconventional oater about youth in revolt with Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown doesn't celebrate the golden opportunities that awaited settlers out west as the typical John Ford horse opera might herald. Instead, everybody complains about the lack of hospitality and the terrible ordeals that the pioneers weathered on the rugged frontier.Our protagonists are a Union Army draft dodger from Ohio on the lam and an ill-bred ruffian who preys on the unsuspecting. "Bonnie and Clyde" scenarist Robert Benton teams up again with co-scribe David Newman, but Benton is calling the shots now rather than somebody else. Benton depicts crime on the prairie as neither glamorous nor simple. Moreover, he presents violence as impersonal, arbitrary, and without a shred of sentiment. For example, a young thief steals a pie cooling off on the window ledge of a farm house. As he scampers out with the pie, the back of the head erupts with a splash of blood as a bullet hurls him headlong into the dirt. Benton stages an impressive hanging scene without the usual ostentation. A small group gathers around the man to be hanged. They seat him on the horse, and a deputy leads the horse away without warning so that the criminal sways briefly with a kick or two. Everything about the hanging takes place in such a matter-of-fact way that the punishment itself lacks any impact. Altogether, "Bad Company" deals in irony, and our two anti-heroic leads dabble with little success in crime until the last scene when they emerge as bank robbers. In a sense, the end is the beginning for them as criminals. Most of the action occurs in the wilderness, and the wilderness here is drab, overgrown with foliage, and never scenic. Mountains don't crouch ominously on the horizons. Despite the lackluster setting, Benton's low-budget oater is blessed by the cinematography of "Godfather" lenser Gordon Willis. Willis imparts a sense of muted beauty to this Spartan tale. "Bad Company" isn't a traditional western and only one important character sports a Stetson. Nobody looks like the usual cowboy, though the sets have a western flavor.As "Bad Company" unfolds, the Union Army is rounding up young men who have tried to avoid enlisting in the military. An Ohio youth, Drew Dixon (Barry Brown of "Halls of Anger") evades the Union troopers when they search his house and then his parents pack his belongs, give him some dough, and send him on to Fort Jefferson where he plans to catch a wagon train west to Virginia City. When he arrives in Fort Jefferson, Drew falls in with the unprepossessing likes of roguish Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges of "Rancho Deluxe") who leads him down a side alley and clubs him. Drew has a wad of cash stashed in his shoe, but Jake walks off with less than ten dollars. Later, Drew looks for a Methodist woman. Jakes' cohorts rob her, but he returns her purse and breaks into her house without realizing that Drew is waiting for her return. Drew and Jake tangle in a knock-down, drag-out brawl and Jake is so impressed with Drew's tenacity that he takes a liking to him. The Methodist woman returns to her home and screams at the sight of destruction, prompting Jake and Drew to exit before they are caught on the premises. Whereas Jake is a cheerful thief, Drew tries to stick to the straight and narrow. For example, Jake and his gang coerce Drew into proving his mettle by robbing a storekeeper. Drew takes money from his shoe and smashes up his fist to prove that he dealt with resistance from the storekeeper. Jake and company take him in as one of their own. They are all teenagers and they dress like the children of settlers. Nobody wears traditional western gear.The theme of the West as a land of woes rather than promise is played out in two important scenes. Benton has an amusing incident happen when the boys encounter a farmer with his wife on a wagon in the middle of the prairie. The farmer warns them the nothing good can come of the west. They tried to till the land, but Mother Nature threw one obstacle after another in their way. Finally, the farmer, Zeb (Ted Gehring of "The Thomas Crown Affair") strikes a bargain with the boys that they can have intercourse with his wife, Min (Monika Henreid of "The Omega Man"), for eight dollars. Of course, Jake is the first one to mount her and he finishes up in lightning fast time. Zeb comments about Jake's celerity, and Jake is proud that he came so rapidly, not realizing the onus attached to swift sex. Later, our heroes are caught off-guard by an older gang of outlaws led by Big Joe (David Huddleston of "McQ") who laments the day that he went west. Big Joe and his minions rob the boys, but they leave them their horses. Inevitably, Jake's gang begins to fragment, especially after the encounter with Big Joe and his outlaws. They dine with a farmer who keeps them covered with a shotgun. At one point, they steal chickens from another farm and one of them dies stealing a pie. Before long, Jake and Drew are set afoot when their friends betray them. Jake and Drew turn on each other and Drew joins a posse led by a marshal (Jim Davis of "The Honkers") and he catches up with Jake, but he cannot stand to see Jake swing."Bad Company" is an above-average movie, probably more sophisticated than it needed to be. Newman and Benton has written an interesting tale of initiation, but the stakes here are pretty low and the filmmakers are more prone to poking fun—subtle fun—at the genre than delivering slam-bang shoot-outs, hard-riding chases, and bar room brawls.

dougdoepke Overlooked little gem from the counter-cultural era (1972). It's about as unromantic a view of the Old West as you're likely to find this side of a hog wallow. Nice Christian boy Bruce Brown flees the Civil War and a Union press-gang only to head west and fall in with a youthful gang of petty thieves. The story is really about his gradual corruption from innocent survivor to hardened stickup man. But more than a morality tale, the movie debunks about every glamorized cliché you've ever seen about life on the frontier. Consider the following-- a homesteader escapes from frontier poverty prostituting his wife along the way; hungry kids get their heads splattered for stealing a pie; companions steal from strangers and even from each other ; and worst of all are the six-guns that don't even shoot straight. I expect there's more truth packed into these 90 minutes than in a ton of traditional Westerns. But who wants reality when myth is so much more comforting. Just look at these guys, scruffy, dirty, and dressed like they're wearing every garment they've ever owned-- even the Black Hole of Calcutta would consider them a health hazard. Then there's the pitiful hovels of the settlers that stick up like ugly warts on a sea of futility. It's really the visuals that tell the story and with scarcely an ounce of romanticism.Jeff Bridges is terrific as Jake, the sort-of-charming but "he'd steal your shoes" gang leader. Ditto, David Huddleston as the philosophical prairie king-pin, and Jim Davis as the ice-cold marshal (I really did expect the camera to turn away from the hanging). Brown's okay, but I'm not sure how well his more complex role and concept is written. All in all, this so-called anti-Western is a logical reaction to decades of prior Hollywood myth-making, which may have been entertaining but was also profoundly misleading in its conventions. Nonetheless, Bad Company is also highly entertaining, and despite the obscurity, a major revisionist film from a rebellious time period.

rhinocerosfive-1 A gang of little thieves meanders West to dodge the Civil War draft. On the way they lose their innocence, their dignity and most of their lives.Stars Jeff Bridges as a rural Artful Dodger, Barry Brown his Oliver Twist, and David Huddleston as Fagin. Features harsh dialog, decently drawn characters, the always excellent Gordon Willis behind the camera, and a jackrabbit shot to death with large-caliber revolvers.Like its early-70s revisionist brethren, BAD COMPANY immerses the viewer in an unglamorous Old West - there is some cursing, sudden brutality, and dirty clothing. Any of your companions could rob you, kill you or die any time. You will meet oddball characters on the trail. You will not take a bath for weeks. A jar of stolen peaches is your reward for a hard day's looking over both shoulders. That, or a load of buckshot in the back of the head. Unlike better works of the genre and period, here there is no paean to friendship lost, no elegy to changing times, no growth from boy to man, no story even. It's just a slice of life. This can be fine, this no-journey journey thing, but in BAD COMPANY point A is so close to point B, you will not have time to gain any insights. You will not learn any lessons, except perhaps a fatalistic impulse to steer clear of other people. So ultimately this movie, though competent in every element, is little more than a bummer.Too bad about Barry Brown - he shot himself in Silverlake before Silverlake, or he, was really fashionable. Too many movies like this and one gets a little depressed, I guess.