Review: The Last Hard Men


Set in the early 20th century (with nice attention to detail), no-good bandit James Coburn and his motley crew escape from prison, with Coburn hoping to settle a score with old nemesis, aging lawman Charlton Heston (who arrested him and killed his wife a while back). Barbara Hershey is Heston’s daughter, who is kidnapped by Coburn, with some of the nastier elements in his gang (which includes Jorge Rivero, John Quade- who just plain looks like a creep, the always unscrupulous Robert Donner, and Thalmus Rasulala) threatening to do some very unsavoury things to her. Christopher Mitchum plays Hershey’s boyfriend, who has different ideas to Heston as to how to get her back. Soft-spoken Michael Parks plays the local sheriff, as the days of the Wild West start to give way to modernisation and civilisation.

 

Imperfect but unfairly maligned 1976 Andrew V. McLaglen (“The Rare Breed”, “Chisum”, “The Wild Geese”) B-western is pretty violent (though not nearly as nasty as Leonard Maltin would have you believe, he’s way off base here), but well-acted for the most part. Coburn has never been this nasty before and Heston is very solid in a surprisingly age-appropriate role). It’s watchable, I just wish Coburn’s men were given more character depth, and Parks written out of the film altogether. Although he tends to get the best reviews of the film, I found Parks’ performance typically method and self-conscious for the eccentric actor. He was a constant and needless distraction. The screenplay is by Guerdon Trueblood (“The Savage Bees”, which also co-starred Parks alongside Ben Johnson and James ‘Roscoe P. Coltrane’ Best), from the Brian Garfield (not surprisingly the author of “Death Wish”) novel.

 

I can see what they were trying to do here, a sort of last, ugly stand for the Wild West (similar to Peckinpah’s “The Wild Bunch” and “Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid”), but I’m not sure they achieved it. Worth a gander, though, if you like the cast, and can handle the uglier side of the Wild West.

 

Rating: C+

Comments

  1. Marc SigoloffFebruary 12, 2017 at 5:25 PM

    How closely did you follow the movie? Larry Wilcox played the nice guy of the gang and Robert Donner was killed before they even kidnapped Barbara Hershey. You make it sound like they were lusting for her.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ryan McDonaldFebruary 13, 2017 at 9:43 AM

      I watched all of it, and if you read the review properly, I say that the gang 'includes...'. I'm not saying the entire gang are lecherous scumbags. I also merely commented on Wilcox's looks, not his character.

      Delete

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