Sorry, this movie sucks

Awesome Movie

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Gregory Peck occasionally played ambiguous, morally conflicted characters in films like "Moby Dick" and "The Bravados", but rarely played outright villains, "The Boys from Brazil" being an exception. It therefore comes as something of a surprise to see Hollywood's Mr Clean here cast as Clay Lomax, a bank robber released from jail after serving his sentence. We quickly realise, however, that despite his murky past Lomax is to be the good guy in this movie. He is out for revenge on Sam Foley, his former partner-in-crime, who double-crossed him and attempted to kill him. He learns that Foley has never been convicted for any of his crimes and is now a wealthy and outwardly respectable rancher. Oddly enough, Foley is not the film's main bad guy either; his is a relatively small role. He has, however, learned of Lomax's release and has hired three young gunslingers to keep an eye on his former associate who he believes (correctly) will come looking for him. It is the leader of this trio, Bobby Jay Jones, who functions as the film's villain-in- chief. He and his fellow-thugs are under strict orders from Foley not to shoot or kill Lomax, but this does not prevent them from killing anyone else who crosses them or gets in their way. The title "Shoot Out" is a bit misleading as, although the film contains plenty of shooting, there is no single climactic "O K Corral"-style gunfight. (The novel on which it was based had a different title, "The Lone Cowboy").Peck's career went into something of a decline in the late sixties and early seventies; few of his films from this period are of top quality; "MacKenna's Gold" is another sub-standard Western from around the same time. Earlier in his career, however, he had made some excellent Westerns, notably "The Big Country" and "The Bravados", both of which can also be characterised as "revenge Westerns", although they deal with the theme in a rather more thoughtful way than "Shoot Out". "The Big Country" deals with a meaningless blood-feud between two families, neither of whom can remember who committed the original wrong which started the cycle of revenge. In "The Bravados", Peck's character might seem to have ample grounds for his campaign of revenge on the bad guys, but he later comes to regret his actions. "Shoot Out", however, is not in the same class. There is a misguided attempt to inject a note of sentimental humour; an important sub-plot involves Lomax becoming the guardian of a six-year-old girl named Decky who turns out to be his illegitimate daughter by his now-deceased mistress, conceived just before he went into jail. (Decky's peculiar forename is never explained; while watching the film I misheard it as "Debbie"). Now young Dawn Lyn was obviously an adorable child, but she was the sort of adorable child who would have been more at home in a sweet family comedy than in a hard-boiled revenge Western, and the scenes in which she appears do not blend in well with the rest of the film. Another thing I disliked was the treatment of Bobby Jay and his sidekicks. They are obviously intended to be evil, but are portrayed in such an exaggerated, cartoonish manner that they come across as simple pantomime villains and never really seem very threatening. This sort of thing was not unusual around this time; "Hannie Caulder" and "Will Penny" are two other examples of otherwise serious Westerns which suffer from a tendency to overplay the bad guys. Perhaps this was done here to try and offset the fact that Lomax, the supposed hero of the film, has himself been far from admirable. At one time the censors might have objected to a hero who was not only an unrepentant bank robber but also the father of an illegitimate child, but by 1971 the Production Code was dead and buried, and the protagonists of Westerns no longer needed to be 100% clean cut. It does, however, seem rather self-defeating to give your film a flawed hero and then to camouflage his flaws by exaggerating the villainy of his enemies. This was the penultimate film directed by Henry Hathaway; I must admit that I have never seen his last, "Hangup", and from what I can gather not too many other people have either. Two years earlier Hathaway had made the highly successful "True Grit" which had given John Wayne's career a new lease of life and had brought him his only Oscar. Tthe two films also shared the same producer (Hal B. Willis) and screenwriter (Marguerite Roberts) and had a similar theme in that they teamed an ageing male star with a young girl, although the character played by Kim Darby is rather older than Decky. The team were obviously hoping that they could do for Peck what they had done for Wayne, but to succeed in this aim they really needed a better vehicle than this one. 5/10

Thirty six year old Westerns seem to be on television every week but few directed by Henry Hathaway with Gregory Peck taking the lead. As usual I was working with just the picture and no sound and it seemed to be so slow to build up until the little girl appeared - no Shirley Temple she and sassy enough to get under anyone's craw. But the superb scenery eventually got to me and on came the sound. There is one scene which eventually backfires on the troublemaker which is worth the entry price alone - I won't spoil it with another hint. I just felt it needed a bit more credit as I enjoyed it enormously - both the silent and the talkies version.

Lots of action but the same old plot of good, but not too good versus bad, pretty bad. No gratuitous sex and violence in the old style with no gore. Interesting story line of old grudges and the new breed of cowboys learning lessons from the older guys. Gregory Peck is outstanding and out shines the rest of the cast but the bartender, Trooper, does his own shining. Bobby J is the meanest of the bunch but Sam Foley has his own secrets and he does an excellent job. This is one of those you enjoy seeing every few months. This is a tough guy movie about tough guys but one with a heart. It does have a few unexpected turns and twist, especially the kid, and there are several turn of events that keep it interesting with out all the technical tricks of todays fare of flicks.

The overall plot and suspense elements of this movie are excellent and deserved far better treatment. There really was a fine movie underneath it all, but it was sunk to mediocrity due to three factors:1. The child actress is awfully annoying. No, wait,...she was #@&%$# annoying!! Not only couldn't she act convincingly in many scenes, but the writers couldn't decide whether to make her adorable or a filthy-mouthed cretin. I think they achieved the latter more than the former, dang-#%#&$!!.2. Several times, Gregory Peck got the draw on the bad guys (i.e., captured them and could have shot them). The first time he let them go made little sense. But the second time, he KNEW they were murderers and yet after disarming them he let them go! DUH!!! I HATE to see supposedly smart characters do dumb things that no real person would do.3. The prostitute who was kidnapped and manhandled throughout the movie by the bad guys was pretty annoying--in particular her voice. She sounded for all the world like June Foray--the voice of Rocky Squirrel from the Bullwinkle Show. I can't believe that one of the IMDb comments praised her acting and felt she was a star on the rise.BUT, despite these big problems, the final half of the movie was pretty rousing and kept the tension going. In particular, the ending was excellent. Too bad the unevenness really spoiled the overall effort. Gregory Peck deserved better material.