Often described by director Martin Scorsese as his favorite Western, Marlon Brando's only foray into directing resulted in one of the most interesting films in the genre. Brando plays an outlaw abandoned on a Mexican mountainside by his partner Karl Malden, while escaping from a posse. After doing a five-year hitch in a Mexican prison, Brando goes looking for revenge. A film whose troubled production history included contributions by Sam Peckinpah and Stanley Kubrick, in many ways it's a precursor to the operatic, slow-motion oaters of Sergio Leone. Basically a standard Western, it's raised a few notches by a great performance from Brando, who is given all he can handle by a memorably sadistic Malden. The pace of the scenes is undeniably slow, and one's enjoyment of the film probably depends on the extent to which viewers find Brando's myriad expressions of slow-burning rage compelling. Either Brando has an excellent eye or he was lucky in his choice of cinematographer Charles Lang, because the photography of Monterey, the Sierras, and the Mexican coastline is spectacular. Katy Jurado, Slim Pickens, Ben Johnson, and the always disturbed Timothy Carey round out the colorful cast.
