Joe Kidd

Well the deer didn't know where he was, and I wasn't sure either. There's a certain school of thought with Eastwood purists that Joe Kidd is far more meaningful than its reputation would suggest. In fact, that it most certainly is not in the lower tier of Eastwood Westerns that ratings across internet forums say otherwise. Truth is, is that with Eastwood starring, Robert Duval and John Saxon supporting, John Sturges directing and Elmore Leonard writing, well this really should have turned out far better than it did. In short order it has Eastwood as gunslinger/bounty hunter Joe Kidd who…

<em>'Joe Kidd'</em> is solid. It's not Clint Eastwood's best work but it's still a role that sufficiently entertains. You also have an important role for one Robert Duvall, who did <em>'The Godfather'</em> in the same year interestingly. No-one else really stands out; not even the miscast John Saxon. The plot is a simple one, which thankfully doesn't drag thanks to a short run time of around 90 minutes. There's also an amusing scene involving a choo-choo, so there is also that. Overall, it does enough for me.

**_Eastwood’s “lost” Western with Duvall and Saxon_** In the Southwest in 1902 a land-grabbing tycoon (Robert Duvall) hires an ex-bounty hunter (Clint Eastwood) in order to track down a Mexican leader who objects to injustice (John Saxon) and is hiding out in the high country with his people. Don Stroud is on hand as one of the pompous gringo’s heavies. "Joe Kidd" (1972) is generally viewed as one of Eastwood’s lesser Westerns when it’s more entertaining than Sergio Leone’s overrated trilogy from 1964-1966, at least in my opinion. It has a notable cast, a superb score and great locations,…

When the Mexican farmers under their leader “Chama” (John Saxon) finally run out of patience with the gringo’s stealing their land, they take matters into their own hands and earn the enmity of opportunist land-grabber “Harlan” (Robert Duvall). Meantime, “Kidd” (Clint Eastwood), who prefers to see life through the bottom of a bottle, has been having his own altercations with the law and so reluctantly joins the posse. Fairly swiftly, though, he (and we) realise that he’s backed the wrong horse as his new boss’s indiscriminate brutality begins to turn his stomach. Constantly ribbed by the…