When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder

It's been over 20 years since I've seen this movie and it's every bit as good as I remember it. Marjoe Gortner is most convincing as a sociopath tormenting small town folks and passersby with a touching love story in the background. Great soundtrack too! When You Coming Back Red Ryder? deserves to be rereleased on DVD.

Dont listen to the bad reviews, this is one of the greatest psychological dramas of all time, right up there with WHOSE AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOLFE & THE ANNIVERSARY but with way more dark overtones and up dated by utilising the political confusion of the transition between the early 50s and late turbulent 60s. Marjoe Gortner is on fire here as the psychotic ex Nam vet Teddy who singlehandedly terroises the inahbitants and few customers at a roadside diner with psychological terror and intimidation. Sure, the movie drags a little in the first half hour, setting up the case scenarios of the players ala PULP FICTION but by golly when they all meet up at the deserted diner are you in for a treat in psychological warfare. Peter Firth is absolutely fantastic in the role as Stephen (Red) Ryder and this really can be seen as a coming of age film and a depressing view into the life of Jerry Springer style poor white trash in small country towns. There is a 90s movie titled ALBINO ALLIGATOR that borrows heavily from this movie but falls oh so short. Red Ryder improves with repeated viewings and starts to resmble a black comedy in places. Itll make you laugh, sigh, frightened and when it gets going will have you at the very edge of your seat.This movie is awesome and should be re-submitted for its deserved (but currently out of reach) cult status. My second favourite movie of all time. love it or hate it you wont regret it. For those who hated it I plead for you to check this out again. There is way more in this film that meets the eye.Although far from being first rate technically this is without doubt a brilliant film on many other rare untouched levels.Now can some one out there release this on DVD already!??? I also recommend seeing the MARJOE documentary..AFTER this movie....essential viewing.

Gortner's character is smarter and tougher than anyone else in the diner. In an experiment in depravity, he decides to see how far he can humiliate and bully people before they stand up to him--if they do at all. He uses his worldliness and intelligence to insult them in ways that they might not detect, or pretend not to notice. When he learns that a young man bears the nickname Red Ryder, he sets out to show the banality and hypocrisy of American culture.

It's an anti-Western: the antagonist, a Vietnam veteran, finds that America is not the home of the brave, that perhaps the free and heroic spirit embodied in the popular conception of the Old West has vanished--or has it?

While the character is reminiscent of *Blue Velvet*'s Frank Booth (played by Dennis Hopper), *Red Ryder* is the superior film. Its predator is more comprehensive, realistic, and transparent. Booth, like many of Lynch's characters, is ultimately a cipher, and therefore uninteresting.

I seen this movie years ago on television and remember thinking then that it was too violent for TV. I wish I had seen the theatrical version. This lost gem of a movie stuck in my mind. Sure, like any movie it has it's tedious parts but as it progresses it just gets better & better.

The end of William Peter Blatty's "The Nith Configuration" borrows from this movie. The ending in RR is one of the most intelligent best endings I have seen in any movie ever. I noticed on other reviews nobody explains or tells of the "SURPRISE ENDING". So, I will not either. I just know it has probably one of the best endings in film next to "Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry".

I recall thinking this movie would be uninteresting when I first saw it on HBO back in 1984, but this in not the kind of movie I could forget about a month later. No wonder so many stage recreations have been done. The many characters are so identifiable, so authentic in their behavior. I have to wonder where the writers got their material. As one who was born and spent many years in west Texas, this is like a compressed version of many years of my life. Thank God, the extreme bad guys like Teddy are rare, but they do exist. I recall a guy like him who started a serious fire at the school during the summer. It's too bad that this movie is not available anywhere or ever shown these days.