Long before Elmore Leonard became the darling of mystery thrillers, I heard once upon a time, he wrote several Westerns. Still, I was amazed to see that one of them had actually been adapted to the screen and I'm very impressed with the results. John Russell (yet another great performance from the ever-excellent Paul Newman) has to be one of the more unusual protagonists that I've seen in a Western. Strong-silent types are a dime a dozen, but Newman adds an extra level of intensity that makes Russell's characteristic silence something more unsettling. Whenever he explodes into violence, it's twice as scary to me than usual.
Everybody else in the cast is, more or less, about who they are and what they're about (thankfully, we get the sense that we're watching real people as opposed to classic Western stereotypes), but not Russell. Russell is the only one I couldn't quite figure out. It's obvious that he does care a little (as the initial scene in the cantina showed), but most of the time, all I could see was a stony indifference to the petty concerns of the people under his charge. His primary goal is more basic: survival. Despite that, he dies saving the life of a woman who'd insulted him more than once on the initial leg of the trip. Now why would he do something like that? I can't say that I know, but I very much doubt that it's for such noble reasons as self sacrifice for a fellow human, etc. Keep in mind that this guy heard this woman scream for several hours for someone to come and get her without batting an eye.
Ascribing easy answers and platitudes to this film is less than pointless. It's really about human nature more than the Old West and when it comes to that subject, there are no easy answers.
Everybody else in the cast is, more or less, about who they are and what they're about (thankfully, we get the sense that we're watching real people as opposed to classic Western stereotypes), but not Russell. Russell is the only one I couldn't quite figure out. It's obvious that he does care a little (as the initial scene in the cantina showed), but most of the time, all I could see was a stony indifference to the petty concerns of the people under his charge. His primary goal is more basic: survival. Despite that, he dies saving the life of a woman who'd insulted him more than once on the initial leg of the trip. Now why would he do something like that? I can't say that I know, but I very much doubt that it's for such noble reasons as self sacrifice for a fellow human, etc. Keep in mind that this guy heard this woman scream for several hours for someone to come and get her without batting an eye.
Ascribing easy answers and platitudes to this film is less than pointless. It's really about human nature more than the Old West and when it comes to that subject, there are no easy answers.