“Hell you can buy me Cash, you always could. But you can’t buy the badge. And one without the other ain’t no damn good.”
I LOVE This film.
See my previous review about how my initial disinterest the first time I saw this film, turned to absolute adoration the 2nd time I saw it. Every time I have seen it in the years since, my love for this film deepens.
“Sarita we’ve gotta give it a rest. The talk. All of it.”
“You don’t want to be with me any more?”
“No I didn’t say that. I just said we gotta give the talk a rest. That’s all. You, me and Cash. It’s too hard. It’s going to get too goddamned complicated.”
“For you Jack. But what about me?”
It is an imminently quotable film. Every line is a poetry of sorts. Not the poetry of Shakespeare’s HENRY V , but in its way the dialogue here is every bit as iconic and memorable and haunting.
“I’m just a poor ass dirt farmer. Nobody ever gave me nothing. And nobody’s gonna take it away!”
It is the culmination of Walter Hill’s filmic soliloquy on masculinity and violence and relationships.
And it stars some of the greatest character actors of the day, in arguably their finest roles.
“I don’t want to see you around here anymore.”
“Hell no Deputy. You can color me gone.”
The late great Rip Torn (who by all reports was a fun, rebel raising bad ass, here in this role gets to be closest to the bad-ass he was), Michael Ironside, the late great Powers Booth (who delivers an award worthy performance), Larry B. Scott, Maria Conchita Alonzo, William Forsythe (who steals every scene he is in) , Clancy Brown and Nick Nolte all deliver for me, some of the finest performances of their respective careers.
“State Legislature??!! Shit, Jack! !Only thing worse than a politician is a child molester.”
I learned a valuable lesson that day many years ago, that first impressions while unavoidable are seldom solid ground to stand on. What matters is informed opinions.
My informed opinion is this Walter Hill ode to his love of Peckinpah and Ford, driven by a torrential, act of god script by the great John Milius, transcends its inspirations and influences to be one of the greatest films ever made. And arguably the best modern day western ever made.
There is unfortunately no DVD or BluRay that does a great job on this film. No cast or director’s commentary. Probably your best best currently is the beautiful German mediabook Bluray edition. But even then, the Bluray is obviously just taken right from the DVD. with no mastering done. Picture wise you might as well stick with the DVD, however, the mediabook, has beautiful photographs to accompany the Bluray. The text is in German, but any online translator can help with that.
Still I do hope for a worthy well mastered Bluray someday soon, complete with commentary by the surviving cast and crew. ShoutFactory (a well known Bluray special edition producer)… make it happen!! 🙂 .
Until then to get the Bluray MediaBook, go HERE!
“He died going forward. That means a hell of a lot down here. “
Heroic Times 