This is a minor 70s Western, directed with rather too much stolidity by Andrew V. McLaglen. Heston hasn't quite got the form in the genre to pull off the ageing lawman role, although you can certainly see his ornery old Republican role being practised before your eyes; Coburn is good as the psychotic halfbreed outlaw looking for revenge, but he needed a director who encouraged him to loosen up more and go loco.
The film does score points, though, in its nastiness. There is a genuinely sadistic universe on show here, as if in the last days of the Wild West the outlaw and the marshal both were reduced to being little more than collections of violent spasms, each twitch aimed at causing some torment to another human being, and each situation causing more twitchin'.
The film does score points, though, in its nastiness. There is a genuinely sadistic universe on show here, as if in the last days of the Wild West the outlaw and the marshal both were reduced to being little more than collections of violent spasms, each twitch aimed at causing some torment to another human being, and each situation causing more twitchin'.