The Last Hard Men

Charlton Heston is Burgade, trying to retire, with his daughter Susan (Barbara Hershey). when chain gang prisoner Provo (James Coburn) escapes, he comes gunning for Burgade. along with a whole group of fellow prisoners. chris Mitchum, son of robert, is in here as Brickman. mexican muscle man jorgé rivero is Menendez. Larry Wilcox (CHIPS !) is Shelby. Provo manages to kidnap the daughter Susan, so Burgade gets a posse together and goes after Provo and his gang. the usual western, tracking, trailing, threats, shoot-outs. it's good. most of the film is the sheriff tracking Provo and his gang. Directed by Andrew McLaglen. he worked with John Wayne on seventeen films! Story by Brian Garfield. filmed in various beautiful locations around Arizona.

The Last Hard Men finds James Coburn an outlaw doing a long sentence breaking free from a chain gang. Do he and his friends head for the Mexican border from jail and safety. No they don't because Coburn has a mission of revenge. To kill the peace officer who brought him in and in the process killed his woman.

That peace officer is Charlton Heston who is now retired and he knows what Coburn is after. As he explains it to his daughter, Barbara Hershey, Coburn was holed up in a shack and was involved in a Waco like standoff. His Indian woman was killed in the hail of bullets fired. It's not something he's proud of, she was a collateral casualty in a manhunt.

Lest we feel sorry for Coburn he lets us know full well what an evil man he truly is. Heston is his usual stalwart hero, but the acting honors in The Last Hard Men go to James Coburn. He blows everyone else off the screen when he's on.

Coburn gets the bright idea of making sure Heston trails him by kidnapping Hershey and taking her to an Indian reservation where the white authorities can't touch him. He knows that Heston has to make it personal then.

Coburn's gang includes, Morgan Paull, Thalmus Rasulala, John Quade, Larry Wilcox, and Jorge Rivero. Heston has Chris Mitchum along who is his son-in-law to be.

The Last Hard Men is one nasty and brutal western. Andrew McLaglen directed it and I'm thinking it may have been a project originally intended for Sam Peckinpaugh. It sure shows a lot of his influence with the liberal use of slow motion to accentuate the violence. Of which there is a lot.

For a little Peckinpaugh lite, The Last Hard Men is your film.

"The Last Hard Men", based on the novel "Gun Down" by Brian Garfield of "Death Wish" fame, is an effectively harsh, intense Western made in the Peckinpah style, utilizing the common Western theme of changing times and the weary veterans coming to terms with this reality.

Charlton Heston displays quiet strength as former lawman Sam Burgade, whose nemesis Zach Provo (James Coburn) has escaped from a road gang with his accomplices. Provo, a half breed, is obsessed with exacting vengeance upon Burgade after a past shootout had resulted in the death of Provo's wife. As Burgade puts it, vengeance is basically all that Provo lives for now and that there would be a big hole in his life to fill without that hatred. Provo's particularly insidious plan involves the kidnapping of Burgade's daughter Susan (ever lovely Barbara Hershey), upon whom Provo will unleash his drooling degenerate pals if Burgade doesn't come to face him.

Give this movie, directed by Western pro Andrew V. McLaglen, credit for going to a place not typically considered in the Western by having the outlaw gang actually force itself on poor Susan. The violence is also definite post-"The Wild Bunch" stuff with a fair bit of the red stuff flowing as the movie goes along. As would be important for any Western, the scenery is shown in all of its breathtaking glory, and the period recreation handled well. The music score by the consistently reliable Jerry Goldsmith hits all the right, rousing notes. As the climactic action plays out, it's equal parts suspenseful and exciting.

Coburn oozes menace as the seething, vengeance-crazed Provo, and his gang is comprised of men such as Jorge Rivero, Thalmus Rasulala (who unfortunately doesn't get a whole lot to do), Larry Wilcox of CHiPs, Morgan Paull, John Quade, and Robert Donner. Quade is especially good as a true creep. Christopher Mitchum, son of Robert, also comes off well as the "greenhorn" who Burgade realizes he has underestimated. But the most interesting performance in the whole thing is that by Michael Parks, playing the low key, reform minded, not terribly efficient sheriff.

"The Last Hard Men" is good if not great, and is a suitably entertaining movie while it lasts.

Seven out of 10.

A nice departure from the mainstream, "good guys wear white hats", product typical of the genre. First released in the 1970's, the movie followed in the experimental trend of the day begun with the "Spaghetti Westerns" starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, etc.

Both the protagonist and antagonist are throwbacks to an earlier time. Charlton Heston is somewhat dismayed and bewildered by the technological changes thrust upon him while James Coburn's character simply disregards them. The two men become locked in an ego battle that disregards all those around them except to the extent others are useful in pursuing their own personal goals. Both characters are incredible "hard men", physically, mentally, and emotionally and this aspect of their personalities plays out in single-minded, intense violence and cruelty.

The plot is nothing new, however. Coburn plays an escaped convict bent on avenging himself against Heston, the lawman who captured him. Coburn manipulates a gang of mostly dimwitted but dangerous criminals who kidnap Heston's daughter. Heston then chases them across hill and dale in an attempt to save her.

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'.