Rating: 
Summary: A Classic McQueen western
Review: This movie is one of Steve McQueens finest.Though one might take umbrage at McQueen playing a half white half Indian - he looks pretty white - McQueen gives an excellent performance. You see him evolve from a young hotheaded kid into a bitter and hardened killer. He becomes like the men he's hunting down in other words. this movie was made at the beginning of the "new" Hollywood Western. It's grittier then much of the dreck that was churned out during the fifties and it makes an effort to portray some technical accuracy as well. But it is still a transistional piece so the towns are clean, the clothes are tailored and the saloons are elaborate. But for the time it was made the movie stands head and shoulders above most westerns. In just a few short years Eastwood's Spaghetti Westerns and Sam Peckinpah would chance the face of the western forever so this movie has to be placed in the earlier category and in that case it's excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: A Personal Favorite...And It's a Pre-quel!
Review: This was one of the very first westerns I ever saw as a kid, so it has a certain amount of nostalgia for me.The story is excellent & McQueen portrays his morally ambiguous character, out for revenge against the men who murdered his parents, with sensitivity. We see that he slowly becomes like the killers he's after, living only for vengeance, walking away from one potential love interest & losing the respect of another while she dies from a snake-bite. (This one was played by Suzanne Pleshette.) We sympathize with him, but he's no hero. He participates in robberies & associates with killers in his quest, so in that sense, as another reviewer stated, this is the beginning of the "modern western." Other reviewers, however, have also missed out on another intersting aspect of this film. It's a pre-quel. Most viewers don't realize this. "The Carpetbaggers", written as a novel by Harrold Robbins & released almost two years before "Nevada Smith" was a huge hit back in the '60's. That film starred George Peppard as a millionaire tycoon & Alan Ladd as his close friend & mentor. Peppard's character, "Jonas Cord Jr.", is really a fictionalized Howard Hughes. His father (and namesake) had gone insane & Cord The 2nd lives in fear of turning out like his father. So much so, that he becomes so ambitious in his quest for wealth, becoming both an aviation industrialist & a film-producer (just like his real-life counterpart, Howard Hughes), that he turns away from any & all real, meaningful relationships. His best friend, Alan Ladd's character, saves "Cord" from himself, by making him face what he's become. This character, portrayed by Alan Ladd, is a cowboy/western film-star during the early days of Hollywood & is a top billing star in "Cord's" (Peppard's) movie-studio. He knows how a single-minded obsession can destroy ones' humanity because he himself had gone through it as a young man, growing up in the Wild West..... You guessed it. Alan Ladd's character is "Nevada Smith", the very same character portrayed by Steve McQueen in the movie of the same name. If you watch "The Carpetbaggers" & "Nevada Smith", then you can really enjoy the characters more, seeing their backgrounds & how they came to be. In "Nevada Smith" it is Jonas Cord (Sr.) (portrayed by Brian Keith) who teaches McQueen's character how to fight. This relationship gives us the reason why the Alan Ladd character ("Nevada Smith" as an old man) is so devoted to Peppard's Jonas Cord Jr. It also shows how relationships & behaviors repeat themselves. Both movies are classics. Both movies are also somewhat dated ("The Carpetbaggers" could be re-done today & improved upon, as a mini-series on tv while "Nevada Smith", though excellent, does contain some historical innaccuracies which today's westerns would never allow), but the writing, the characters, the direction, & the acting in both films are still good enough to hold up to today's audiences.
Rating: 
Summary: A Unilateral Cowboy
Review: Three terrorists torture and murder a young man's parents. The young man then behaves like a cowboy, unilaterally determining to kill the terrorists and erase them from the world as a threat to anyone else (in addition to punishing them for their evil deed). The cowboy does not seek to form any sort of coalition. He does not consult the United Nations. He does not ask, "Why did they hate my parents?" He does not appear to know anything about the concepts of tolerance, diversity, inclusion and compassion. There was never any mention of passing resolutions or sending inspectors. He merely rids the world of the terrorists (except for the last one, who just wasn't worth it). By the end of the story, these are certainly three terrorists who will never again terrorize anyone. Now, what sort of message does this send, regarding the best way to deal with terrorist/killers?
Rating:
Summary: A Unilateral Cowboy
Review: Three terrorists torture and murder a young man's parents. The young man then behaves like a cowboy, unilaterally determining to kill the terrorists and erase them from the world as a threat to anyone else (in addition to punishing them for their evil deed). The cowboy does not seek to form any sort of coalition. He does not consult the United Nations. He does not ask, "Why did they hate my parents?" He does not appear to know anything about the concepts of tolerance, diversity, inclusion and compassion. There was never any mention of passing resolutions or sending inspectors. He merely rids the world of the terrorists (except for the last one, who just wasn't worth it). By the end of the story, these are certainly three terrorists who will never again terrorize anyone. Now, what sort of message does this send, regarding the best way to deal with terrorist/killers?
Rating:
Summary: We miss you, Stevie
Review: What more can I ask for on a lazy Saturday afternoon? I caught this film on TCM and wasn't disappointed. This was my first Steve McQueen western and as with all of his performances I've seen, everything about his acting is authentic and natural. I've never seen an actor so comfortable in his own body. Beside McQueen and excellent supporting performances, especially the always realiable Karl Malden, I enjoyed the beautiful photography and locations, which was filmed in one of my favorites spots on earth, the Inyo National Park, on the California-Nevada border.
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