ChanBot i must have seen a different film!!

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

inspectors71 Fans of Andrew V. McLaglen movies (McLintock!, Chisum, and The Wild Geese come to mind) won't mind the dark, nasty, gory The Last Hard Men with James Coburn and Charlton Heston. It's standard revenge stuff until you notice that it's way more violent and sociopathological than something fluffy like McLintock! or the all- purpose, crowd-pleasing Chisum.What the six years from Chisum to The Last Hard Men wrought. McLaglen had no trouble dabbling in a bit of gore here and a skosh of savagery there, but The Undefeated and Chisum were rated G. TLHM brings you lots of close-up impalings and incinerations and splashy gunshot wounds, sometimes in slow-mo! It seems that ol' Andy McLaglen was watching a lot of Sam Peckinpah and Sergio Leone in the early 70s!The biggest change might be McLaglen's treatment of women. In McLintock!, John Wayne woos Maureen O'Hara by stripping her to her undies, dragging her through molasses, showering her with feathers, spanking her with a stove shovel, and boinking her as the lights come up. To quote Judith Crist, "What girl could resist?"In The Last Hard Men, Barbara Hershey, a woman I find much more real and appealing than the actressy O'Hara, gets pummeled by Coburn, leaving her gasping on the floor of Heston's home, with a sprig of hair across her face, daring not to brush it away for fear of getting hit again. Jump to Coburn releasing two of his henchmen to chase down Hershey, as her dad, Heston, watches from a distance. They catch her and rape her while Coburn taunts Heston with "They're xxxxxxx your daughter!"The switch from chauvinism to sadism, from the early 60s to the mid- 70s, couldn't be a pleasant one for the likes of Hershey's character.With that said, I sat engrossed in The Last Hard Men when I saw it as the lead up to The Enforcer in December, 1976. It was just the sort of intense, brutal movie that I grooved on in my late teens. I learned to really like Charlton Heston and James Coburn, so much so that I have searched out movies with these two actors, long before I really noticed them.I got my prurient kicks some years later seeing Barbara Hershey nekkid in the imbecilic The Entity, but the more I think about it, I realize she was more appealing, sexier when she was fighting back against the thugs in the western. Cripes, where am I going with this?I miss Heston and Coburn. I miss Wayne (and the PC police in California can pound sand with their complaining about John Wayne being a hater). I think I liked The Last Hard Men not in spite of its sadism, but because of it. Kind of like The Professionals and The Dirty Dozen.Does that make any sense?

erikboice I saw this film when I was 14 years old and loved it....I am now 52 and I still enjoy the film...is it perfect...no...but is it a good movie...yes. Especially if you like westerns..Heston and Coburn are great in their roles. The obsession Coburn's character with Heston dovetails into Heston's character who pines for the west 'as it was'. They are two players that are of the 'old west' not the new...it is somewhat a tale of change in the west in America that occurred at the turn of the century. I would like to add that the soundtrack was well done and the secondary characters were well played. At the end of the day I feel its a good movie worth a watch.

sol ***SPOILERS*** Seething with hatred and revenge half breed Zach Provo, James Coburn, had spent the last 11 years on a chain gang planing his escape. What Provo want's more then freedom is to even the score with the man who captured him and in the process, during a wild shootout, killed his Navajo wife: The former Pima County sheriff Sam Burgade, Charlton Heston.Making his escape after killing two prison guards Provo makes his way towards Yuma knowing that that's not just where Burgade lives but where his his young daughter Susan, Barbara Hershey,resides as well. Using his fellow escaped convicts to lure Burgade into the vast Arizona Desert, by promising them $30,000.00 in gold coins that he buried there, Provo plans to exact his bloody vengeance on Burgade. But only after having him witness his daughter being brutally raped by his fellow convicts or are, in not being with a woman for years, as horny as a rabbit during mating season!Brutal and very effective western that updates the John Wayne 1956 classic "The Searchers" in a father searching through dangerous Indian territory for his kidnapped daughter. Charlton Heston as the guilt-ridden Sam Burgade in his felling somehow responsible for killing Provo's wife and then having to face the fact that the same thing can very well happen to his daughter Susan is perfect in the role of the aging and retired sheriff. Charles Coburn as the vengeful half breed Zach Provo is also at his best as the obsessed with hatred and murder escaped convict.The man who escaped with Provo are really not interest in his personal affairs but have no choice, in that he knows the territory like the back of his hand, but to go along with him. It's only the thought of them having their way with Susan, when Provo gives them the green light, as well as the buried $30,000.00 in gold coins that keeps them from breaking up and going their own way.Also going along with Burgade is Susan's boyfriend Hal Brickman, Chris Mitchum, who proves in the end that he's as good as Burgade is, who felt that he just didn't have it in him, in both tracking down the escaped criminals as well as using common sense, which in this case Burgade lacks, in doing it.***SPOILERS**** The unbelievably brutal and blood splattered showdown between Burgade and Provo is almost too much to sit through. Provo who's hatred of Burgade bordered on out right insanity wanted him to suffer a slow and excruciating death. it was that hatred that Bugrade took advantage of and, after taking some half dozen bullets, thus ended up putting the crazed and blood thirsty, as well as mindless, lunatic away for good!

lastliberal It is not often that you see an "R" rated western. It was even initially banned in Sweden, if you can believe that. But, that was for what was considered excessive violence, including a rape.But, there was not much violence when you consider the torture porn of today, and there was no nudity, despite Oscar-nominee Barbara Hershey's long history of flashing her breasts in several movies, notably Boxcar Bertha just four years before.James Coburn plays the role of a tough half-breed that wants to torture Charlton Heston for killing his wife eleven years previous when he was a sheriff. He almost gets his wish, but, hey, this is a western, and you can't ever let the bad guys win.This is the way they should have all been made.