John Wayne is not bad in this film, but you get the idea he signed on just for the paycheck. The premise of the story is promising but doesn't live up to it's potential. It moves slowly, does not engage the viewer emotionally in the lives of the characters and quickly descends into completely pointless violence. The scene in which John Wayne's main character is killed makes no sense, with the entire group of boys impassively standing by and watching their mentor be slowly shot to death. Then their method of dealing with Bruce Dern's character is just brutal. The scenery and John Williams' score are two slightly redeeming factors. Roscoe Lee Brown is wonderful, as usual, but overall, this film is terribly disappointing.
Review of The Cowboys
