Barquero

The Quick Pitch: Remy (Warren Oates) is the leader of a band of outlaws. He wants to cross a river on his way to Mexico. The titular barquero, Travis (Lee Van Cleef), isn't going to let him use his barge. He knows it will be destroyed to prevent others from following. A stand-off ensues.

Until I stumbled on this last night, I had no idea Barquero even existed. What a find! Warren Oates and Lee Van Cleef in the same movie. These guys just ooze machismo. Throw in a supporting cast featuring Forrest Tucker and Kerwin Mathews and there was no way I wouldn't enjoy Barquero. The opening shootout as Remy and his men slaughter everyone in a small town to steal a wagon load of guns is an over-the-top joy to behold. And the last act where Remy and Travis are drawn into their final, inevitable showdown is just plain old awesome.

The problem with Barquero is the bits that come between the beginning and the end. Unfortunately, the second act really drags with Remy and Travis separated by a river. They shout back and forth, but there's really not much else that happens. Too bad, because with this kind of cast, some fantastic locations, and plenty of blood and violence, Barquero had the potential to be legendary.

6/10

The picture narrates as a renegade motley group (Warren Oates, Kerwin Matthews, Armando Silvestre) executes a massacre when they are robbing the village's inhabitants . They flee but are stopped by a barge's owner (Lee Van Cleef) in the frontier on river Grande . The barquero called Travis has his own life-style and his own death-style . He is only helped by a mountain man (Forrest Tucker) . The confrontation will be terrible and they will fight until death .

The highlights of the movie are the initial slaughter by the cutthroats and facing off between the good and bad guys on the lumber barges . This picture along with ¨ Hang'em high¨ (by Ted Post with Clint Eatwood) belongs to numerous filmed in the 60s and 70s influenced by Spaghetti Western , thus it develops ordinary themes such as : revenge , violent facing , similar musical score , tough antiheroes , spectacular gun-down and excessive baddies , all of them common issues in Italian Western . Lee Van Cleef , recent his success in Leone Western (A few dollars more) is top-notch . Warren Oates is magnificent as the ominous and hideous villain . The secondary cast is excellent , Forrest Tucker as the wry and impulsive trapper , Kerwin Mathew as Marquette , Mariette Hartley as Anna , Armando Silvestre as Sawyer and John Davis Chandler plays a cocky villain , as always . Dominic Frontiere's musical score is atmospheric and adjusted to action western , similar to ¨Hang 'Em High¨ soundtrack that he also composed . The motion picture was well directed by Gordon Douglas , though Robert Sparr was originally set to direct, but he was killed in a plane crash while scouting locations , then Gordon was hired to replace him . Gordon Douglas direction is nice , he had formerly got a lot of experience in Western genre (Only the valiant and Chuka). The yarn will appeal to Lee Van Cleef fonds and Western movies fans.

Barquero is directed by Gordon Douglas and written by George Schenck. It stars Lee Van Cleef, Warren Oates, Forrest Tucker, Kerwin Matthews and Mariette Hartley. Music is by Dominic Frontiere and cinematography by Gerald Perry Finnerman.

When is a Spaghetti Western not a Spaghetti Western? When it's Barquero is the answer. It has the feel of a Pasta Oater, from the colour photography and musical scoring, to the pungent dialogue delivered in various guises of grizzle and accents, Barquero clearly takes its lead from Europe. Which as it happens is absolutely fine because this is a hugely enjoyable exercise.

"I would give anything in the world to spend the night with you... Except my barge"

Plot basically involves a cat and mouse scenario played out on each side of a river. On one side is a gang of thieves led by Warren Oates' Jake Remy, who after executing a robbery in town are trying to leave the country. On the other side is the townsfolk headed by Cleef's Travis, who is the most important man in the play because he owns the ferry barge that is apparently the only means of crossing the band of water.

"Back east I read books about men taming the wilderness. I dreamed about those men. They weren't like you. They weren't like you, they were statues that people could look up to. The only resemblance you bear to a statue is pigeon droppings"

What unfolds is a twin telling of the character dynamics at work in either side of the camp. Remy is a mercenary bastardo who rules his gang with a rod of aggressive iron, Travis is hard bitten by life and actually doesn't care much for the townsfolk he serves. The two men are battling for supremacy not just of the "barge" situation, but of their psychological well beings. Hostage situations come into play, there's plenty of scowling at each other across the water, some piercing violence and it builds to a grand finale with a battle fit for some viking based epic!

Casting aside the cheese laden dialogue, and it's best just to run with it to fully enjoy the picture, it's a production of some serious quality. With two of the genre's best brooders leading the cast, the acting side of things is in good hands. Backing up Cleef and Oates (both excellent) are Tucker (Travis' comic side-kick but still hard as nails) and Matthews (Remy's voice of reason), and although she's under used, the adorable Hartley hits the right notes for the key female role that tempts and taunts Travis' core masculinity.

The Colorado location photography is gorgeous, the beautiful shimmering landscapes alive in De Luxe Color. Frontiere's (Hang 'Em High/Chisum) score is dynamite, blending Spaghetti style clangs with military percussion, it swells and explodes at all the key points of plotting. Douglas (Rio Conchos) is unfussy in direction, maintaining interest during the talky character expansion scenes. And finally I simply have to mention the sound mix (Robert Miller and Ben Sad), it's tremendous, the thunder of hooves and the crack of gunfire literally splinters the ears, joyously so. I viewed this in HD on UK TCM on my home cinema system, suffice to say if possible I recommend you see it that way as well!

Awash with caricatures and the sort of tongue in cheek scripting that lends it a vibe to not be taken serious, it's clearly not a hidden masterpiece, but this is fascinatingly muscular fun that also looks and sounds tremendous. 7.5/10

Barquero has really no excuse for not living up to its full potential. The inspired casting choice of piting genre stalwarts Lee Van Cleef and Warren Oates in opposite sides of the river against each other and the idea behind the film – a group of ragtag cut-throats led by Oates transporting rifles and silver after a successful raid at a nearby town to the Sonoran territory in Mexico and desperately in need to cross the river before the army gets them while Lee Van Cleef as the boatman holds the barq at the other bank and refuses to pick them up. That should have been enough to keep Barquero afloat and my terrible puns at bay (ahem).

What really keeps the film down is the unpolished, roughly sketched script. The first and closing acts sustain interest through lengthy bouts of gunfighting but some kind of semi-compelling plot needs to be assembled for the middle act where sadly Barquero fails to kick the conflict into high gear, a hard feat to accomplish with a story that seems to invite conflict and could have gone into so many different places. Instead what we get by the end of act two is the good guys outwitting the bad and saving the hostage Warren Oates was keeping tied up and Oates half mad and desperate (as the army draws closer with every passing moment) shooting holes at the water and saying to his henchman "I shot the river". Not particularly endearing, don't you think? Forrest Tucker steals scenes in the role of ant-eating Mountain Phil while Van Cleef and Oates seem to be representing two different western archetypes – Van Cleef the romantic hero eclipsed by the coming modernization of the west, represented in the movie by a bunch of squatters he's called to protect, Oates the rough-hewn, murderous son of a bitch, the gritty and hardboiled aspect of the western, pioneered at the time by spaghetti westerns of whose villains he's somewhat reminiscent of.

Definitely better seventies westerns to keep the genre aficionado occupied out there but it's worth a watch for its marquee value, Van Cleef and Oates a dream match made in heaven and both in pretty good shape.

Like contemporaries Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, Lee Van Cleef did his sojuourn in European films mostlywesterns and graduated to leads. Unlike Marvin, Bronson, and others like Claude Akins, Neville Brand, and Jack Elam, Van Cleef never did explore a comic side. Maybe he just didn't have one. He's also one strange hero as he is in Barquero.

In this film Lee Van Cleef is the man with the barge who ferries people across a deep river. He doesn't even particularly like the settlers in the town on the river bank that has grown up. But when Warren Oates's gang of renegade cutthroats want to use that barge, Van Cleef proves to be the savior of the town.

Oates who usually plays with a comic twist either as a good guy or a bad guy is one deadly serious villain here. His gang massacres a whole town to leave no witnesses to a shipment of arms that they are robbing. Van Cleef knows well what they are capable of.

Forrest Tucker who can be comic here provides the comic relief as a mountain man. the last of a breed who proves to be Van Cleef's salvation. He rescues Van Cleef when he's captured by a couple of Oates's men who were sent to secure the ferry man for the gang. He has some sardonically funny scenes with John Davis Chandler, the captive.

Mariette Hartley is in this and she's the wife of a local storekeeper who is also a most pious reverend. When he's left behind and captured by Oates, Hartley makes Van Cleef an offer that an old time gentlemanly cowboy hero would never take up. Think of Clint Eastwood in High Plains Drifter, that's the kind of hero Van Cleef is.

This one is a must for fans of Lee Van Cleef.