Thanks for the memories!

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

The first must-see film of the year.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Thrilling story about a group of young people who join forces to be robbers , as they rob their way west but with unexpected consequences . This first-rate Western draws its riveting tale and power from the interaction of finely drawn roles as well as adventure and action . Good and enjoyable western with a great casting and two sensational starring , a very young Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown in a coming-of-age story . This exciting film packs Western action , go riding , thrills , emotion , shoot-outs and results to be quite entertaining . It contains a magnificent main cast as Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown facing off bandits (David Huddleston , Geoffey Lewis , Ed Lauer , among others) a tough sheriff(Jim Davis) and deputies ; in addition , a top-drawer support cast . This is a nice flick containing a little bit of charming humor about naively juvenile , friendship , violence and sense of comradeship among people . It's a sympathetic western , with a beautiful cinematography , attractive scenery from meadows and great soundtrack by piano . It deals with a god-fearing Ohio boy called Drew Dixon (Barry Brown) dodging the Civil War draft arrives in Jefferson City where he joins up with a hardscrabble group of like runaways heading west , being led by Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges) , a street-wise rebel . Both of them have wildly differing temperaments . Soon after, though, the drifter young finds out existence on the West is neither what he expected nor what he's been wishing . As the dangerous journey that turns out to be worst than expected , suffering attacks , hard-working activities , robbing , gun-play and many other things . Formidable as well as intriguing Western full of action , fascinating drama , crossfire and fabulous performances . It's a wonderful adventure film format "western" itinerant, filled with entertaining events , danger and life lessons . This exciting film packs good feeling as friendship , faithfulness , companionship and violence as well as touching scenes on the final . The screenplay , by David Newman , Robert Benton , is plain and simple but intelligent , with a conventional plot , but ultimately gets overcome . The picture belongs to Western sub-genre of the seventies about juvenile people , starred by teens or little boys such as ¨The Spikes gang¨ , ¨Marshal Cahill¨ , ¨The cowboys¨ and ¨The Culpepper Cattle Co¨. Gorgeous outdoors with decent production design by Paul Sylbert . Filmmaker gets to remain the Western emotion , moving scenes and suspense until the ending . The young starring player Barry Brown is very good , his role as an ingenuous and cultured young is top-notch , he performed similar character as a naive cowboy in other films however , he virtually disappeared without much trace until his suicide , as he shot himself to death . He was especially known for Daisy Miller (1974) , Piranha (1978) and this Bad company (1972). Sympathetic Jeff Bridges as gang leader , he steals the show as likable as well as two-fisted young gunslinger . According to Jeff Bridges the gunfight in the forest had to be completely re shot after the film was ruined in the lab . Secondary cast is extraordinary such as John Savage , David Huddleston , Jerry Houser , Jim Davis , Geoffrey Lewis , Jean Allison , Ed Lauter , John Quade and Charles Tyner . Cool cinematographer Gordon Willis prowls his camera splendidly through some wonderfully seedy , deserted landscapes . Evocative and atmospheric musical score composed by means of piano played by Harvey Schmidt. This Sleeper Western was well produced by Stanley R Jaffe and stunningly directed by Robert Benton , recreating compellingly this thrilling story ; being debut of Benton and whose most popular movie resulted to be ¨Kramer vs Kramer¨ . He is a writer and director, known for Kramer vs Kramer (1979), Nadine (1987) , Billy Bathgate (1991) , Nobody's Fool (1994) , Twilight (1998) , The human stain (2003), Feast of Love (2007) and wrote Superman (1978) and Bonnie y Clyde (1967). This much underrated Civil War era Western is rated above average ; being essential and indispensable watching for Western genre fans . Enjoyable scenarios , interesting script , nice performances and gorgeous outdoors make this well worth seeing .

Robert Benton's and David Newman's third screen writing collaboration—after 'Bonnie & Clyde' (1967) and 'There was a Crooked Man' (1970)—'Bad Company', though flawed, is still one of the better revisionist westerns of the Seventies. Helmed by Benton (his first directorial effort) and shot by Gordon Willis ('Klute'; 'The Godfather') in and around Emporia, Severy, and Neosho Rapids, Kansas, 'Bad Company' is a western, a road movie, a buddy film, and a coming-of-age story all rolled into one. According to press materials, the impetus for the story came out of Benton's recollections of his father and uncles in Waxahachie, Texas. Although his uncles exhibited "an enormous kind of chemistry for the illegal," his basically upstanding father worshiped his brothers nonetheless. Hence the movie's theme: "When you love someone you ultimately cross lines for them you never expected to cross in your life." After a son is killed at the Battle of Chickamauga (September 1863), a Greenville, Ohio couple hide their other son, Drew Dixon (Barry Brown) from union troops searching for draft evaders, give him $100 and his late brother's gold watch, and send him on his way toward the sparsely settled western territories where, presumably, he will be safe from the draft. Dixon's travels to St. Joseph, Missouri—the western edge of the Union and the eastern terminus of (the by then defunct) Pony Express—where he hopes to join a wagon train or board a stagecoach for Virginia City, Nevada (1,500 miles further west) and make his fortune as a silver prospector at the Comstock Lode. Stranded in St. Joseph, which is swarming with union soldiers, Dixon is accosted and robbed by Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges), another draft dodger who heads a small gang of young desperadoes. Though Drew Dixon is a naive young man from a pious, respectable background, he soon falls in with Jake Rumsey (i.e., "bad company") much in the same way that Oliver Twist fell in with Fagin and his pickpockets. Jake, Drew, and four other youths ride west through desolate country. Along the way a grizzled farmer heading back East sells his wife's sexual favors to the boys for eight dollars; the boys buy food from a farmer who holds a shotgun on them as they eat; they are robbed by a gang of outlaws; one boy is shot dead trying to steal a pie; another hops a stagecoach the band was trying to hold up; a pair of brothers (one of whom is played by a very young John Savage) hold Jake and Drew at gunpoint and take their horses but are later found hanging from a tree. The gang that previously robbed them attack Jake and Drew but this time they stand their ground and kill their assailants. Discovering that Drew faked a robbery to get into his gang, Jake knocks Drew unconscious, robs him, and leaves him to fend for himself in the wilderness. And on and on it goes. What started as a youthful adventure turns into an endless nightmare of paranoia, violence, predation, and betrayal in the savage Darwinian universe that was the Old West. In the end, the nominally pious Drew has transformed himself into an honest outlaw indistinguishable from Jake Rumsey. Though not big at the box office, the film earned good notices and inspired a hit song "Bad Company," by a hugely successful English rock group of the same name. A sad postscript: the movie's promising co-star, Barry Brown, struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction before committing suicide on June 25, 1978 at the age of 27. VHS (1998) and DVD (2002).

A young man dodging the Civil War draft falls in with a group of runaways heading west. This is a Western in name only. It has little of the elements that one associates with the genre. Making his directorial debut, future Oscar winner Benton does little to enliven this comedy-drama. The script is too rambling to hold one's interest. The characters are not compelling enough to care what happens to them. The attempts at humor are somewhat forced. The shift between comedy and brutal violence is jarring. Bridges does OK in what was his first starring role. It is sad watching Brown, a talented actor who committed suicide six year later at the age of 27.

They unabashedly emulate and hold up western, and adult, behavior, for all to see and as boys they have a lot to learn, and as moviegoers, so do we. In this perfect film the boys hold up a mirror to the world, and our preconceived notions, about the west, what it is to be a man, and in doing so, truly show us the way as they try to find their's. They practically play at cowboys for us, until the real big bad world comes along and smashes in, with violence, a stark world around them and for us the viewers, our ideas about our past. And this is where the real story is. The lead actor Barry Brown as Drew Dixon brought this film to what most consider it's art-like appeal. His performance is haunting, beautiful, and unforgettable. Without him, there's no film, in my opinion. His foil is aggravating, oafish, Jeff Bridges who a fan of his, will appreciate, as he gets the boys time and time again into trouble none of them asked for. Young John Savage is there, rightly brilliant as usual, playing an evil snake in the grass. None of the characters are without pathos, redeeming factors, and a likability. The entire cast, named and unmentioned here, are perfectly cast and no bit routines are allowed, each with private identities enriching the story. This movie leaves me haunted and it is still the finest, and best of it's kind.