It seemed like for the first sixty years of Hollywood, action movies and westerns went hand in hand. These western's established many actors as mainstay in film. Arguably the first true action hero was created from these westerns and his name was John Wayne. He was an old school actor for these old school films and if you don't like this particular style of movie, which dominated Hollywood for many, many years, then you won't like this.

John Wayne (True Grit) stars as John Elder, who is the son of a woman who has died and comes back to town to come to the funeral. There he meets up with his three brothers who all were gone from home and discover that there father was shot in the back and murdered and their mother had the family ranch stolen from them. The four boys then go on a mission to find out who did these crimes and why the town folk are hiding it from them.

The movie is shot with lots of wide angles and profile shots that dominated film making in the day. There are no special effects in the movie but lots of stunt acting on horses and of course, gun fights. These movies also, for the most part, have the same general premise. There is a person, usually female, in danger, and the hero comes back into town and kills the bad man responsible.

This story does keep me interested from the very beginning in trying to follow the brothers in their search for who is the bad guy. Of course, we know who the bad guy is so the suspense is not in the who but in the how for the hero's. The story does fall apart during the climatic scene when John faces the bad guy, Morgan Hastings, played by James Gregory (The Main Event) and he kills him by blowing up his store, with him in it, original ending but somewhat boring.

This cast also has Dean Martin, a very young Dennis Hopper, and George Kennedy (The Naked Gun) as the hired gunman to protect Hastings. There is nothing exceptional with the acting and at times it is somewhat cheesy. However, this does follow suit with this style of movie.

If you are not a fan of the old westerns or of John Wayne, then you will not like this movie. I liked the movie but the ending was too anti-climatic for such a stud that was John Wayne. I am not trying to make excuses for him, but he insisted that he did his own stunts and he was just coming of surgery that removed parts of his cancerous lung, so he couldn't do much. Unfortunately John died ten years later due to Lung Cancer. I say go ahead and see the movie, you may like it.

Brian - the Naked Gun