The Cowboys

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  December 14, 2008

  FangsFirst

  I've got a funny point of view on this film. Apparently a very funny one. The two critics I pay attention to (meaning that I read their reviews, but don't necessarily make any judgments based on them) both gave this middling to piddling reviews (Ebert, who I think is a crackpot w...( read more)ith a deft ear for language, gave it 2.5 out of four stars, Leonard Maltin gave it two). I'm young, which puts me outside the generation that grew up on westerns, and into one that has a general distaste for them. I'm a left-leaning moderate if not a liberal, at the least on military policy (though not a military-hater by any stretch of the imagination, or really at all), putting me at odds with the Duke (though actually on track with director Mark Rydell and some of the actors). Still, I myself grew up thinking westerns were all brown and flat and dusty and boring. I bought--as many my age do--into the bullshit that says that westerns are all simplistic, gung-ho machismo and lack subtlety, nuance, and any kind of tolerance or realistic presentation of races other than white men, or of women. Sure, people make exceptions (and I started there, too) for recent films like Eastwood's Unforgiven (actually I didn't see this until I realized I like westerns) or maybe Silverado. Peckinpah is an occasional exception for his near nihilism and violence, though still a drunken misogynist by reputation. But, damn...what a great fucking movie.*
  
  Wil Andersen (John Wayne) is a cattle man, and he has a herd to drive to Belle Fourche, SD from near Bozeman, MT, but a sudden gold find has left him without the hands to do it. His friend Anse (Slim Pickens, always a welcome face and voice) asks Wil how old he was for his first cattle drive and eventually draws out the reasonability of drafting kids from the local schoolhouse. Wil still scoffs, but the next morning, he and his wife Annie (Sarah Cunningham) wake to find a group of boys outside anyway. Wil is annoyed but Annie asks him not to be too rough on them, so Wil offers to look at hiring anyone who lasts a count of ten on the still-wild filly he has been working on taming. The boys are very reluctant upon seeing the horse's general disdain for the safety of humans, but eventually one pipes up and holds on as Wil's jaw softens a bit and his eyes widen ever-so-slightly. The boy rolls off the horse and introduces himself as "Slim" Honeycutt (Robert Carradine), the rest all hold easily to their mount, too, ten in all: Fats (Alfred Barker, Jr.), Dan (Nicolas Beauvy), Steve (Steve Benedict), Weedy (Norman Howell, Jr.), Stuttering Bob (Sean Kelly), Charlie Schwarz (Stephen Hudis), Hardy Fimps (Clay O'Brien), Jimmy Phillips (Sam O'Brien) and Homer Weems (Mike Pyeatt). When Wil asks for the next, up steps a new, older boy, fifteen like the eldest, Slim. He holds onto the filly and even calms her to a trot before handing her off to Slim with a snide comment, sparking a quick fight. Wil says he's not sure about this new boy, Cimarron (A. Martinez), but takes on the rest. The final member of their group is the cook, and the one Wil has sent for has skipped out on him, but sent another cook in his stead. The new cook is black (which is treated smartly, might I add), and proves himself as a cook with the slightest of provocation, giving his name as Jeb Nightlinger (Roscoe Lee Brown). While Wil is now set with hands, a man with long hair (and no name, but he's played by Bruce Dern) appears and asks to be added to the crew. He attempts to deceive Wil to get in so Wil refuses him, unsurprisingly leaving an otherwise simple cattle drive vulnerable in the dark to the ex-criminal cattle rustler and his friends.
  
  I'm going to touch on this subject gingerly: I was quite annoyed when I got about twenty minutes into this movie, but it had nothing to do with the film. My mind started picking at an old wound, something given away about this film and it found the spot where it hurt and masochistically dug in. I remembered all too early what some jackass had written in the "life synopsis" section of a Bruce Dern autobiography--"but he may be most remembered for his role in The Cowboys where he [censored to save you, dear reader, from the spoiler I could not avoid]." Let's just say it gave away his fate and who put him in a position to balance on that precipice of chance. I was thoroughly annoyed and convinced the movie was ruined, however unsurprising a move it was, but on it rolled and I was sucked in yet again. I was very excited watching this movie because I was sort of expecting a familiar style of western--I know now that they are not so simplistic as I was once led to believe, but there can still be a formula and a familiarity to any of them, even when contrasting the downers of Peckinpah with the earlier black hat/white hat conflicts. I was surprised consistently by many parts, aspects, devices, performances and structures in the film.
  
  Many people, especially people who would fit my description (young, white, mostly educated, left-leaning, definitely on the lesser side of masculine), do not like John Wayne. Many disagree with his politics (actually this one does include me), others criticize his acting and claim he was a one-note actor with no range and little believability who just swaggered his way through roles as a "man's man," which is generally said by such folk with a derogatory sneer. I am not one of these people (with the conflicting politics exception aside). I own a large number of John Wayne films and do quite like the Duke, and have no qualms with his movies, generally speaking. OK, I'm not rushing out to drink the Green Berets "Kool-Aid," but the westerns I'm good with, and many of the other films. I like icons, and I don't feel the need to rail against them inherently. Wayne's performance here is like many of his good ones--subtle and nuanced, everything I had always read was antithetical to the clumsy, stupid, judgmental racist he allegedly was, by the accounts of the critical people. I can't claim he was none of the above, but I certainly don't think he was as much any of them as such people seemed to think. Here he's a man who has lost his only sons and is now taking on a whole cub scout pack of boys for sixty days, with some great reluctance. He's a proud and stubborn man, but he isn't afraid to admit when he's wrong, or to knowingly shoot himself in the foot with his pride. He's a familiar, comfortable and fatherly figure to both the boys and, in an interesting way, the viewer. He and Slim Pickens are the old hands here, and feel like old friends even if they aren't to you, because they're so easygoing and likeable.
  
  The boys are uniformly good, and in a very surprising way. It's difficult to find actors of ages like this (around 9-15) who act their age successfully. Of course, adding a range is helpful, but no one really goes outside that range of age. Usually you get kids who are smarter than their age but don't know enough to know how to hide it (creating an obnoxious arrogance in their performances that reeks of endless praise and insufficient discipline in their artistic career), or kids who couldn't act their way out of a paper sack. Carradine is making his film debut here, long before his Revenge of the Nerds stardom (or, for that matter, playing Bob Younger in The Long Riders with his brothers Keith and David), and he is quite good as the eldest of the boys, smart enough to be 15 without being ridiculous, playing a Vivaldi piece (!) on guitar that he has learned. Carradine portrays him as unsure in a strong presence like Wil, but clearly aware of his leadership role when it comes to the rest of the boys. Nicolas Beauvy allows for the public humiliation of crying on film, but leaves it a believable set of tears, not a tantrum or a falsity, but the natural response that a fearsome sole like the long-haired bandit invokes. The rest all do quite well, with solid dialects and a pleasing ease in the physicality of their roles that has just the right note of tension to show their youth and inexperience--but the skill to subvert that tension when they have finally emotionally aged and must take on the bandits that outnumber the group. This element is often criticized as "wrong" for showing kids participating in violence, but this evades the entire point of the film, which is showing their emotional maturation and aging, and that this act is not revenge for the theft of the cattle, it is not cold-blooded, it is done because it is their job to take in those cattle for Wil, and they're all needed to get them back.
  
  This is not to say that the performances of the other two adult lead roles, in Brown and Dern, are anything to sneeze at. Brown has the right match of unfamiliar threat to him when playing with the boys (in the sense of playing mindgames) and when disagreeing (rather vehemently) with Andersen. He's very quiet and restrained, but full of vigor held just underneath it, lashing it out with perfect control when appropriate. Dern is in a star-turning role as the unnamed villain and is scarier than all hell, eyes glinting with psychosis and a twisted sense of honour, pride and selfish dignity. It's no surprise that poor Dern was typecast after this, because he makes an excellent villain, and whatever criticism there are of a "magical black man" role like Brown's, his performance elevates it to something more real.
  
  The most pleasing thing, though, is best exemplified in the performance of Sean Kelly, whose stuttering is obviously a lead in to a recurrence of it that affects the plot. Kelly drops the stutter at the right times and he does so right, not as if he is a robotic actor turning it off, but as a boy who is pushed into it, and who reels off a nasty line to Wil's provocations that sounds exactly like the sharp-tongued profanity of an early adolescent. But the problem is still hiding back there--many of the plot points are obvious set-ups, dead giveaways as to what's coming, but Rydell (and perhaps Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr., possibly even author William Dale Jennings--but I'm suspicious when the plotting is the one fault that, however matched, equalled and overcome, is still visible that the original author is the one responsible) does these things right, time and again. One liners and the wit and wisdom of Nightlinger never fall off their tightrope and into self-parody or artificiality, and whenever a line would normally lead to a big rimshot moment, it is turned by the actors and Rydell into a perfectly normal moment, in the same way that those things actually happen, rather than the theatrical occurrence.
  
  A lot of credit can be given for this tone to John Williams (I snickered when the Vivaldi lute part played, wondering if ever Williams would write or insert a classical-style guitar piece and have the other John Williams play it), whose score is as magnificent (with respect to Elmer Bernstein) as always (gosh, sorry about the Bernstein crack, but it was right there...). It's mostly a full-throated orchestra, but with clever accents from guitar, bass and harmonica (with clear instrument-themes of castanets and maracas for villains, as is often the case with western villains). Williams' score is not a complete deviation from most western scores in this respect, but it, too, takes the movie from the full-bore western dynamic and places it back in the realm of "any movie"--in a good way. Strong themes with heroic strains are absolutely present, but they have only the faintest odour of "this was written for a WESTERN!" to them, which made the opening (which, in the current DVD release, has a pure display in an opening Overture, Entr'acte and Exit Music) much more memorable and pleasing for its solitude.
  
  *Pardon my French. I normally refrain when reviewing, though I happily use blue words in reality, but these are the words coming to me this time. Sorry. In fact: Five fucking stars. Take that.

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  October 8, 2008

  PvtCaboose91

  "Now this is the way it's gonna be: I'm a man and you're boys. Not cowmen, not by a damn sight, nothing but cowboys just like the word says. And I'm gonna remind you of it every single minute of every day and night."
  

  
  The Cowboys is an intriguing Western, and o

  ...( read more)ne of John Wayne's final films. When the cameras rolled for this film, Wayne was in his early 60s and looking it. It had been numerous years since the days of The Searchers, Rio Bravo, True Grit, Stagecoach and countless other legendary Westerns featuring The Duke. But John Wayne's age obviously didn't faze him; he was still passionately working on new films, and he was still playing the iconic hero we expected him to play. Even after being ravaged by cancer, The Duke continued to perform his own stunts and prove a potent Hollywood force.
  
  Whilst not in the league of the masterpieces of his career, The Cowboys is decent enough. Credit must go to the filmmakers for attempting an old-fashioned Western in an age when the genre had fundamentally outstayed its welcome. The film arrived during a time when America was suffering disillusionment following the weighty, drawn-out and devastating period of the Vietnam War. This is the kind of stuff kids lapped up during Saturday afternoon matinees. Unfortunately, though, The Cowboys is quite an average Western that fails on various levels. While it does provide the archetypal 1800s landscapes (that are captured beautifully) and a terrific period depiction, the film is somewhat uneventful and banal. In addition, the final third is moralistically messed up. While the film provides an incisive character study chronicling the difficult path from boyhood to manhood, there simply isn't a sufficient amount of substance to justify a whopping 130 minutes.
  
  By most accounts, The Cowboys is an enjoyable flick. I was entertained for about 90 minutes of the movie, leaving about 40 minutes of unnecessary excess.
  
  The Cowboys finds John Wayne playing aging rancher Wil Anderson. He needs to move his herd of cows to Belle Fourche in order to make his annual profit. But Wil is faced with a problem: his hired hands have all fled in search of gold and wealth. With no men to work for him, Wil is faced with the possible dilemma of being unable to move his heard and secure money to handle his annual bills. Left with little choice, Wil recruits a number of young school boys to help him on his cattle drive. Although quite hesitant at first, Wil learns to respect the boys who prove their horse riding skills and true grit. As they set out for Belle Fourche, Wil also recruits Negro cook Jedediah Nightlinger (Brown) to keep the troops fed. However their journey proves dangerous when a horde of cattle thieves begin stalking Wil and his pint-sized cowboys.
  
  "You know, trail driving is not Sunday school picnic. You got to figure you're dealing with the dumbest oneriest critter on God's green earth. The cow is nothing but trouble tied up in a leather bag - and the horse ain't much better."
  
  It's probably quite difficult for some to see past John Wayne's mannerisms that have been lampooned in stand-up routines and comedies over the years. However, his performance in The Cowboys is surprising. He never tries to be anything other than an aging rancher. Characters even insult his age at times. John does everything he's supposed to do - he says his lines, he rides his horse, and he strides authoritatively.
  The young children in the supporting cast comfortably share space on the screen with The Duke, who had become such a true living legend. Some of the boys were actors, others were actual rodeo boys. It must have been difficult for the boys to share the screen with the physically imposing and legendary Wayne. Yet they showed no signs of being intimidated or star struck.
  Roscoe Lee Browne turns in a fabulous performance, as does Bruce Dern.
  
  "Sometimes it's hard to understand the drift of things. This was a good boy. He'd have been a good man. He didn't get his chance. Death can come for ya any place, any time. It's never welcomed. But if you've done all you can do, and it's your best, in a way I guess you're ready for it."
  
  To be honest, I found The Cowboys to be quite a solid production. Like most Westerns the period depiction is wonderful. Rugged landscapes, old-fashioned homesteads, and authentic costumes light up the frame to great effect. There's an overwrought and triumphant score from John Williams as well. But the film is marred by the lack of a meaty plot. While the actors do their best, there isn't much room for character development. Sure the film is a coming-of-age story, but it's a weak one.
  
  The Cowboys has occasionally been described as good "family" fun. However, I beg to differ. Over the course of the story, the boys only appear to learn the virtues of killing and revenge. This simply isn't the best way to denote the transition from boy to adult. It's also hardly the best "family" value unless you're the offspring of The Punisher!
  There's also the fact that the film winks at boys getting drunk. According to the movie's philosophy, this is a part of their growing up process. Furthermore, Wil's notion of curing a stuttering kid of his speech impediment is to get the boy to call him a "goddamn, mean, dirty son-of-a-bitch" really fast. If you buy into any of this, the film may work for. If not, you're going to have a problem.
  Another key fault is the excess of unnecessary sub-plots. So many things are introduced, but never resurface again. Like a character saving a boy from drowning. The boy gives his rescuer some "fool's gold" as a way of thanking him. This is never explored again. What's the point?! There's also a camp of whores at one stage. This scene goes on for far too long and never serves a purpose.
  
  Overall, The Cowboys is a mixed bag. The films looks as good as any Western epic ever made, and the depiction of the period is absolutely wonderful. There are also a few good scenes, although these good scenes are usually too excessive. On the other hand, it's also a slow-going movie and the values it espouses are too suspect. Westerns shouldn't be promoting bloody violence and children taking the law into their own hands. Additionally, it violates a sacred Western law: (SPOILER) John Wayne's character is actually killed. He's gunned down in cold blood. This film is notorious for doing the unthinkable, and subjecting Wayne's character to a violent end. (END OF SPOILER) The bottom line: The Cowboys is just too banal and with insufficient substance. By no means is this an essential Western. You can afford to miss it.

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  June 23, 2007

  chadroesti

  I've broke my back once, and my hip twice. And on my worst day I could still beat the hell out of you.

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  April 6, 2007

  broadwaymo

  My favorite John Wayne movie... Bruce Dern is awesome as a dirtbag, too!

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  November 13, 2009

  Yelverton

  Not a great John Wayne film, but still good.

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  October 27, 2009

  rgblks

  Classic, One of the Best John Wayne films you will ever see.

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  September 17, 2009

  deano

  This is the best John Wayne's latter-day Westerns. He's more like grandfatherhood at his age to a group of young school boys as his drivers in order to get his cattle to market, but the kids learn well. Bruce Dern is on hand as the outlaw leader who fights our hero in one of the ...( read more)genre's most memorable (and violent) scenes since Red River.
  Along as a second role model is Roscoe Lee Browne. Possessor of one of the greatest speaking voices in the English speaking world, Browne is the first black man they've ever met. In fact one of the kids uses the "N" word when first meeting him, out of ignorance more than racism. Browne sets them straight by example more than preaching.
  The oldest two kids, A Martinez and Robert Carradine, have gone on to some considerable adult careers which they are still enjoying. All the kids are a winning bunch however.
  
  Most quote: "We're burning daylight."

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  July 30, 2009

  jackgiantkillr

  A weepy fav for kids and moms. Bruce Dern is forever hated b/c of this.

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  July 25, 2009

  shchase2000

  Saw it before and really love his movies

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  July 25, 2009

  ms50us

  This is the best overall movie of them all. it shows how a big man can take on a bunch of boys and turn them into young men and teach they repsonsibilites.

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• 
  May 5, 2007

  broadwaymo

  I'm not sure who this Tom Keogh dude is, but disregard his review. This is a great movie!!!

• Alfred Barker Jr.
• Bruce Dern
• Colleen Dewhurst
• John Wayne
• Mark Rydell
• Roscoe Lee Browne

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