There was a time when Clint Eastwood was almost exclusively known as a Western star. From his first major success, the TV series Rawhide, to the Sergio Leone directed Man With No Name trilogy of films, the Western genre was Eastwood's bread and butter into the 1970s. With his marquee name, well respected director John Sturges at the helm, and novelist Elmore Leonard scripting, the 1972 release Joe Kidd would seem likely to be another feather in Eastwood's Western cap. However, even with the best cooks in the kitchen, sometimes you can't quite make a top caliber meal, and that sums up Joe Kidd well, falling short of being a great, or frankly, even good Western.
As Joe Kidd opens, the titular hero (Eastwood), is sleeping off a drunk and disorderly arrest in the town jail. When he is hauled in front of the Judge to have sentence passed the proceedings are interrupted by the arrival of Luis Chalma (John Saxon), a Mexican landowner who is fed up with the U.S. government failing to recognize his and his compatriots land claims from when the Spanish ruled the land. Chalma attempts to kidnapped the Judge but Joe foils the plot. Soon, land baron Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) arrives and offers Kidd a deal: he will pay him $500 to help him hunt down and kill Chalma to stop him from raising questions about the land. At first Joe declines, but when he returns home to find friends assaulted by Chalma as he left the area, Joe changes his find and joins the hunt for Chalma with Harlan and his henchmen, but Joe soon realizes that may have been a mistake.
Joe Kidd is the Western genre largely on autopilot. Many elements from countless other westerns are there with little deviation from the norm: a small, one street town, a gruff hero with little penchant for words and a ruthless, money grubbing villain interested in keeping the small man down. As the film unfolds, there is little about the proceedings that stretch the genre much at all. Leonard tries to introduce a small variation by suggesting the possibility that Chalma, who more or less fills the standard role of the heavy early on, is actually in the right with his desire to have his land claims observed, but Joe Kidd does little to flesh this out, it merely serves as a plot device when the script requires one. Joe Kidd doesn't push any boundaries or stretch any horizons, staying very firmly on well tread territory.
Eastwood portrays his rather typical role as Joe Kidd, a man of few words. Eastwood could essay this role in his sleep by this point in his career, and there is little in Joe Kidd that would cause him to move beyond his comfort zone. Robert Duvall plays a at times slimy villain, but there is really little about Harlan that makes him stand out from the normal pack of Western villains. He's greedy, mean and nasty, but that is about all we learn about him. John Saxon takes on a similar type of role that other actors such as Eli Wallach had realized before: a white American actor cast in the role of a Hispanic Mexican. He gives a capable performance as Chalma, but nothing exemplary. Like the other leads, Saxon is held back by the thin script, there isn't a lot of meat on the bones of Chalma for him to sink his teeth into.
Standardized genre films can sometimes provide reasonably entertaining vehicles, but Joe Kidd is so lackluster and rote, and also lacking much in the way of suspense or action, that it can't really manage to summon up enough entertainment value to help transcend it's boilerplate plotting and characters to make it stand out. It is unfortunate with such a roster of talent behind and in front of the camera that something better couldn't have been created, but alas Joe Kidd is a much lesser entry in Eastwood's Western canon.
As Joe Kidd opens, the titular hero (Eastwood), is sleeping off a drunk and disorderly arrest in the town jail. When he is hauled in front of the Judge to have sentence passed the proceedings are interrupted by the arrival of Luis Chalma (John Saxon), a Mexican landowner who is fed up with the U.S. government failing to recognize his and his compatriots land claims from when the Spanish ruled the land. Chalma attempts to kidnapped the Judge but Joe foils the plot. Soon, land baron Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) arrives and offers Kidd a deal: he will pay him $500 to help him hunt down and kill Chalma to stop him from raising questions about the land. At first Joe declines, but when he returns home to find friends assaulted by Chalma as he left the area, Joe changes his find and joins the hunt for Chalma with Harlan and his henchmen, but Joe soon realizes that may have been a mistake.
Joe Kidd is the Western genre largely on autopilot. Many elements from countless other westerns are there with little deviation from the norm: a small, one street town, a gruff hero with little penchant for words and a ruthless, money grubbing villain interested in keeping the small man down. As the film unfolds, there is little about the proceedings that stretch the genre much at all. Leonard tries to introduce a small variation by suggesting the possibility that Chalma, who more or less fills the standard role of the heavy early on, is actually in the right with his desire to have his land claims observed, but Joe Kidd does little to flesh this out, it merely serves as a plot device when the script requires one. Joe Kidd doesn't push any boundaries or stretch any horizons, staying very firmly on well tread territory.
Eastwood portrays his rather typical role as Joe Kidd, a man of few words. Eastwood could essay this role in his sleep by this point in his career, and there is little in Joe Kidd that would cause him to move beyond his comfort zone. Robert Duvall plays a at times slimy villain, but there is really little about Harlan that makes him stand out from the normal pack of Western villains. He's greedy, mean and nasty, but that is about all we learn about him. John Saxon takes on a similar type of role that other actors such as Eli Wallach had realized before: a white American actor cast in the role of a Hispanic Mexican. He gives a capable performance as Chalma, but nothing exemplary. Like the other leads, Saxon is held back by the thin script, there isn't a lot of meat on the bones of Chalma for him to sink his teeth into.
Standardized genre films can sometimes provide reasonably entertaining vehicles, but Joe Kidd is so lackluster and rote, and also lacking much in the way of suspense or action, that it can't really manage to summon up enough entertainment value to help transcend it's boilerplate plotting and characters to make it stand out. It is unfortunate with such a roster of talent behind and in front of the camera that something better couldn't have been created, but alas Joe Kidd is a much lesser entry in Eastwood's Western canon.