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This film has suffered some pretty undue criticism. It gets the dreaded `BOMB' rating in Leonard Maltin's guide, followed by `The worst film of a great director.' I haven't seen more than a couple of Penn's other films, so I can't comment on that, but it is hardly a bomb. Sure, it is a little slow moving, and it doesn't quite feel like the themes of the film were totally panned out, but most of the film is very good. I'm assuming Brando's the problem with most of the film's detractors. Wow, is his performance weird here. If you ever wanted to find the missing link between The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, here it is. He plays a bounty hunter of sorts hired to discover some horse thieves and murderers. This character is very eccentric, and I'm guessing that Brando had a lot of artistic input on this one based on his later career. He's basically a psycho killer, and he seems much more lawless than the criminals he's seeking. He also speaks with an Irish brogue, some of the time. Personally, the waxing and waning accent is my only real problem with the role, and I'm not a big accent baby anyway. It's a tiny flaw in what is otherwise a very interesting performance. Brando creates a very memorable character. Jack Nicholson plays his rival. He's almost ready to go straight, having found a nice, small ranch and a girlfriend (Kathleen Lloyd). His performance is subdued, and I really think Nicholson is best when he's like that. This isn't his greatest performance, but it is subtle and it's very good. The flaws of the film are offset by the number of great scenes in it. Almost every single actor gets one scene alone with Brando, and both Randy Quaid and Harry Dean Stanton deliver excellent performances especially in those scenes. Nicholson's two best scenes are also alone with Brando. I would guess than he had something to do with their co-star; I do think Brando deserves some credit for the excellence of these scenes. Penn's direction is nothing to write home about. I love the two other films I've seen by him, Mickey One and Bonnie and Clyde, but, let's face it, he was more or less ripping off the Italian and French cinemas of the time, respectively. Missouri Breaks is much more straighforward in that respect, and perhaps it is here that it could have used a boost of energy. 8/10.

'The Missouri Breaks' was filmed from a screenplay by National Book Award-winner Thomas McGuane, whose novels are often characterized as 'revisionist westerns', a sort of sub genre in which the romantic conventions of the western--the noble, idealized hero in the white hat taking on swarthy outlaws or bloodthirsty Indians, occasionally aided by a lone, sage, 'noble savage'-type Indian sidekick--are upended for the sake of a muddier, morally ambiguous, more historically truthful account of 'how the west was won.'

Suffice it to say that there are no heroes in 'The Missouri Breaks.' Our protagonist, Tom Logan (Jack Nicholson), is the de facto leader of a gang of fun-loving outlaws in post-Civil War Montana, pistoleros who make their living stealing horses from wealthy ranchers, laughing all the way, a bit like Robin Hood's Merry Men, only Logan and his boys keep the money and spend it on whiskey and whores. Egomaniacal rancher David Braxton (John McLiam) captures and hangs one of Logan's gang, which retaliates by returning the favor to Braxton's ranch foreman on the same noose. Intent on ridding the country of horse thieves and avenging his friend's murder, Braxton sends for Robert E. Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando), the most feared of the Regulators, mercenary frontier detectives famous for their ruthlessness and their ability to kill suddenly and without warning from long distances with their trademark Creekmore long-rifles.

Posing as an aspiring cattle-rancher, Logan buys an abandoned ranch next to Braxton's property to serve as a relay station for moving stolen horses across the plains. He is left to mind the ranch while his buddies move the latest take of horses, and while busying himself reviving the ranch's garden and orchard, Logan begins a relationship with Braxton's daughter Jane (Kathleen Lloyd). Jane suspects that Logan is an outlaw, which makes him only more appealing to her, as she has grown to resent her father's tyranny, particularly after witnessing the slow death of the young horse thief from Logan's gang.

Enter Robert E. Lee Clayton, one of the strangest and most curious of Marlon Brando's acting creations. 'The Missouri Breaks' was Brando's last starring role before 'Apocalypse Now!' (1979), and was preceded by 'The Godfather' (1972) and 'Last Tango in Paris (1972). Like Coppola and Bertolucci, director Arthur Penn (Bonnie and Clyde) clearly sensed that the best thing to do with Brando the Mad Genius was to sit back and watch. From the moment Brando's Clayton appears--bursting in on the funeral of the murdered foreman dressed like a western dandy in fringed leather coat and scarf, bellowing and yanking the corpse up out of the open casket to borrow a few of the ice cubes used to keep the body from decomposing as a compress for a tooth-ache--we know we are in for some vintage Brando.

Nicholson is typically likable, but he isn't given much to work with; 'The Missouri Breaks' is clearly Brando's show, as he systematically works his way through Logan's gang, farting, spritzing himself with perfume, dressing in drag as a frontier granny, singing love songs to his horse, and delivering odd soliloquy's while constantly munching on carrots. Lee Clayton is comic, but he is also sadistic and perverse. Brando seems to be having the time of his life, and it's a genuine pleasure to watch one of the most brilliant and magnetic screen actors of all time given free reign to fashion the lunatic Clayton.

Like much of McGuane's fiction, 'The Missouri Breaks' has a muted, understated tone disturbed only by acts of brutal, unsentimental violence. The scenes and dialogue are meant to reflect the stark beauty of the Montana plains along the fall line of the great Missouri River (the title of the film refers to the long stretch of the river between the plains and the mountains, the corridor by which Lewis and Clark made their way to the Pacific). The plot is fairly predictable once Lee Clayton arrives and starts hunting the horse rustlers, and so the film's main pleasure is in the acting performances, of which only Brando's is truly exceptional. Nicholson can do no wrong, but Tom Logan is a relatively bland, inarticulate character, and, hidden behind an unruly beard, Nicholson's facial expressions can't compensate for the minimalistic dialogue to create a more distinct character. There is little apparent chemistry between Nicholson and Kathleen Lloyd, who followed this film up with winners like 'Deathmobile' and 'Skateboard: The Movie' before settling into a long string of guest shots on TV. Given all the fun Brando seems to be having, Jack must have felt gypped.

'The Missouri Breaks' is all about Brando, and is well-worth watching just for his scenes. It also features an excellent soundtrack by John Williams ('The Missouri Breaks', interestingly, was Williams' project between 'Jaws' and 'Star Wars') and fine supporting performances by Frederic Forrest ('Chef' in 'Apocalypse Now!'), Randy Quaid (a very much underrated dramatic actor in his younger, pre-'Vacation' days), and cult-favorite Harry Dean Stanton ('Wise Blood,' 'Repo Man,' 'Paris Texas') as Logan's fellow horse-thieves. Jack is Jack--one of the greats, with a career that easily stacks up to Brando's--but here, unfortunately, he's stuck playing the straight man to Brando's nut-case, making the movie a disappointment for viewers hoping to see two of film's finest actors at their best.

As others have hinted, this film is beyond most people's idea of merely quirky. In fact, it's slightly unbalanced and in parts borders on insane... yet somehow what emerges is a film that is just about believable, as are the various colourful characters who act it out. The film is great fun, and its two hours go by quickly.

Being a huge fan of Brando, and an admirer of Nicholson, I end up thinking this film in no way detracts from their illustrious careers and what they've done elsewhere. Having said that, Brando does ham it up in a grand, thoroughly camp style: outlandish costume, inexplicable changes of costume, florid gestures and - as other reviewers have pointed out - weird accents. The accents he uses shift around inconsistently and theatrically (especially the more sustained efforts to sound Irish in his early scenes). But he obviously had fun when making the film. Nicholson's performance is a model of seriousness and sobriety by comparison.

The cinematography is superb, with great use of light and shade in shooting a wonderful landscape. The action is generally slow-paced, but with a heavy sense of impending menace through most of the film. The score is not among the film's stronger points. Dialogue is mostly fresh and original for a 70s era western, and cliché avoided. It is well acted, despite the quirkiness of the script and screenplay.

Perhaps a little odd that the critics slated this film so ferociously at the time it was released. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, made just a few years earlier was (rightly) lauded to the skies, precisely for giving originality, humour and a modern twist to the old western format. That film now seems in some ways more dated than The Missouri Breaks. The latter is not as good a film as Sundance, by a distance, but, for any true fan of cinema, well worth giving it a try.

The Missouri Breaks gets its title from the fact that the scene of the action takes place in Montana at the head waters of the tributary streams that eventually flow in and make up the Missouri River. It seems like you have to cross a lot of streams in order to get any place in that country, no matter which side of the law you're on. And we do get to see it from both points of view.

Jack Nicholson heads an amiable gang of horse thieves who probably are no better or worse than a lot of those who might be deemed on the right side of the law. They've been stealing a lot from big rancher John McLiam and he's about had it. His answer though might be worse than the horse thieves.

It's to call in a regulator which is a fancy term for a bounty hunter. The guy he gets is Marlon Brando who it could be argued is in his most villainous role on the screen. This is a swaggering Irish brogue speaking gunfighter who really does love his work.

Brando's ways start to rub McLiam the wrong way not to mention his daughter Kathleen Lloyd the wrong way. She's on bad terms with her father and has taken a shine to Nicholson in any event.

A lot of the same issues are dealt with in The Missouri Breaks that were in the fine Kirk Douglas western, Posse. The difference is that Douglas operates with a professional posse and he's got career plans which call for him to bring in outlaw Bruce Dern and his gang by any means necessary. Brando's not got any plans other than to do what he does, kill people with a license which he thoroughly enjoys.

The final confrontation with Nicholson and Brando is a gem from director Arthur Penn. There's very little words, but the expressions on the faces of both men are absolutely priceless, worth 10 pages of dialog.

The Missouri Breaks is the last of three westerns that Marlon Brando did, One Eyed Jacks and The Apaloosa are the others. This is definitely the one I enjoyed best.

If you're looking for a Howard Hawks/John Wayne-style western, the Missouri Breaks may not be for you. It is, in my opinion, the most sadly underrated western ever.

This film didn't get the treatment it deserved when it came out in the 70s in part because its two stars, coming off movies like the Godfather and Chinatown, were box office powerhouses in their prime when uniquely paired together. I don't know what film could have matched the expectations of the critics, especially a western that was probably more low key and off-beat than anticipated.

I will never forget the first time I watched this movie and how pleasantly shocked I was at how good it actually is.

Brando's portrayal is so wonderfully eccentric it gets more and more enjoyable with repeated viewings. Nicholson's, meanwhile, exemplifies the charisma that we associate with him being at the top of his craft during the Chinatown/Cuckoo's Nest era in his career.

While the two big name stars don't disappoint, the rest of the cast is stellar. Kathleen Lloyd gives the kind of performance from a lesser known actress that has me scrambling for the video guide wondering what other films she might be seen in. Randy Quaid's role is fascinating for being so early in his career. But Harry Dean Stanton delivers an especially understated, yet weighty performance as Nicholson's closest partner.

The dialog is often humorous, especially one scene between Lloyd and Nicholson where he drawls: "Keep the dang thing, I don't want it!"

The Missouri Breaks has extremely interesting, individual characterizations with authentic settings that take you back to a credible old West that is not Hollywood back-lot. The story is funny at times, but extremely tense as it approaches its climax.

Nothing irks me more than a movie that is wonderful in all aspects expect for the score, but that is not an issue here. John Williams' music, with occasional emphasis on the harmonica, fits well with the style of the movie.

If you appreciate the genre, this is entertaining and worth owning. It's the kind of western that should be watched several times to appreciate some of the more subtle nuances and details.

Starring two titans of cinema in Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson, The Missouri Breaks sees Arthur Penn (Bonnie & Clyde) direct, the screenplay provided by Thomas McGuane (Tom Horn) and John Williams composes the score. In the supporting cast are Harry Dean Stanton, Randy Quaid, Kathleen Lloyd, Frederic Forrest and John McLiam. With all these people in place the film was one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Anticipation that was not met at the time as the film became a critical and commercial failure. However, time has been kind to the piece and now it shows itself to be far better than the iffy reputation that's afforded it.

The story is a sort of working of the Johnson County War that surfaced in the early 1890s in Wyoming, where newer ranchers tried to settle but were set upon by the more established cattle barons of the land. One of the tactics by the wealthier ranch owners was to hire gunmen to terrorise anyone they saw as a threat. Here in Penn's movie we see David Braxton (McLiam) ruthlessly deal with anyone who he sees as a threat to his property. However, when someone enacts revenge on him by hanging his foreman, Braxton hires himself a "Regulator" named Robert E. Lee Clayton (Brando) to seek and destroy as it were. This spells bad news for the rustling gang led by Tom Logan (Nicholson), especially since Logan has started to form a relationship with Braxton's daughter, Jane (Lloyd). Somethings gotta give and blood is sure to be spilt.

The most popular word used in reviews for the film is eccentric, mostly in reference to Brando's performance. The big man was growing ever more erratic off the screen and sure enough he changed the make up of his character and improvised at his leisure. Yet it does work in the context of the movie. With his dandy nastiness playing off of an excellent Nicholson turn, McGuane's richly detailed screenplay gets added bite, particularly during the more solemn parts of the story; where patience would be tried were it not for the brogue Irish Clayton. With Penn at the helm it's no surprise to find the piece is an amalgamation of moods. Poignancy hangs heavy for the most part as we deal in the ending of an era and the need to move on. But Penn also delivers much frontier action and snatches of cheery comedy. Then there is the violence, which doubles in shock value on account of the leisurely pace that Penn has favoured. It's sad to think that one of the best splicers of moods was so upset at the reaction to his film he quit cinema for the next five years.

The film, well more realistically the reaction to it, possibly sounded the death knell for the Western genre until Eastwood & Costner refused to let it die. The 70s was an intriguing decade for the Oater, with many of them veering between traditional and revisionist. But of the many that were produced, the ones that dealt with the passing of the era, where the protagonists are soon to be relics of a tamed wilderness, have an elegiac quality about them. Penn's movie is fit to sit alongside the likes of Monte Walsh, The Shootist and The Outlaw Josey Wales. Yes it's quirky and is slowly driven forward, but it has many qualities for the genre fan to gorge on. 7.5/10

With this cast, director and screenwriter audience's expectations were so disappointed in '76. It really was a wtf kinda moment. This was hyped in Rolling Stone and other pop mags of the day. As a young man I thought I must have missed something. As an old man rewatching I report that there's little to miss. With 'Heavens Gate' 4 years later the 2 films almost killed Westerns forever. Story is baffling, some talent is visible but no recc from me.

Good western set in Montana with the only ever on-screen pairing of Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando. Nicholson was beginning his acting career, and Brando was winding down. Wonderful part played by Harry Dean Stanton. He looks and sounds like an old horse thief.

Lots of good humor in the dialog.

Brando plays the strangest hit man ever seen. He is a professional killer who is gay, speaks with a lispy Scottish accent, and does inexplicably odd things. He wears a granny dress in one scene, a Chinese coolie hat in another, but he is deadly from very long range. Brando seemed to enjoy himself in this one. In his last scene he talks to his horse as if she is a coy mistress.

A young Randy Quaid plays a dopey cowhand very well.

There was only one part I think was miscast - John Ryan was too New York for a Wild West film.

Beautiful cinematography. Lots of cowboy action - train robbery, stealing horses, shoot-outs, and wide open spaces.

Funny scene in a bar where a man is tried for his crimes. It is different in tone from the rest of the movie because it is a parody of the old west played by people from the era who are in on the joke. It stands out because it's not really part of the same movie.

"The Missouri Breaks" is an interesting, decidedly offbeat Western drama notable for its teaming of two big stars. Jack Nicholson is Tom Logan, the leader of a group of rustlers. They end up waging war with the rancher (John McLiam, "First Blood") who had one of their friends hanged. In so doing, they also wage war with the weirdo regulator (Marlon Brando) hired by the rancher. The regulator, otherwise known as Lee Clayton, is a free spirit with different personas for different occasions - not to mention different accents.

Overall, this film does have its ups and downs, as does the script by Thomas McGuane ("Rancho Deluxe", "92 in the Shade"). While director Arthur Penn had certainly done better ("Bonnie & Clyde" nine years previous), this is not a particular black mark on his resume, in this viewers' humble opinion. The action scenes are well done, with one standout sequence involving the gang stealing a mass amount of horses from the Royal Canadian Mounties! The scenery is beautiful, John Williams supplies a decent soundtrack, and the films' sense of humour does help it through some slow spots. There's also a romance developing between Tom and the ranchers' attractive daughter (Kathleen Lloyd ("The Car"), in an endearing film debut). This romance is somewhat unique for a Western in that she is the one who keeps initiating liaisons.

The most enjoyable element about "The Missouri Breaks" is its cast: Randy Quaid ("The Last Detail"), Frederic Forrest ("The Conversation"), Harry Dean Stanton ("Repo Man"), as the wise old Calvin, John P. Ryan ("It's Alive"), Sam Gilman ("Gator Bait"), Hunter von Leer ("Halloween II" '81), Richard Bradford ("The Untouchables"), Steve Franken ("The Party"), Luana Anders ("Easy Rider"), etc. Stanton is a standout, although Brando fans will enjoy his flamboyant, eccentric performance. Clayton obviously enjoys what he does, and Brando obviously enjoyed playing this character. Nicholson delivers a comparatively even-keeled portrayal.

The conclusion manages to be both amusing and not completely satisfying. The viewer will likely wish there were more of a big confrontation / showdown between the two anti-heroes at the core of the story.

But don't let the more scathing reviews dissuade you from checking out a fairly entertaining film with more of a revisionist take on the genre than a traditional one.

Six out of 10.

My initial take on this film, given the period it was made, was to wonder who was taking what drugs and how often; Nicholson had recently finished the brilliant Chinatown, Brando had Last Tango In Paris under his belt, and director Penn, the epic Little Big Man; they all got together for this--and it's a haphazard mess; each time the plot starts to evolve in some meaningful way, it comes to a halt for Brando's extravagant lisping Irishman, a self-indulgent performance that poor Arthur Penn had to deal with, or for the romance Nicholson kindles with the magnetic Kathleen Lloyd--and whatever happened to her? I was anxious to finally see the film excoriated by most critics after all these years, and didn't exactly hate it, and did find that Nicholson gives one of his least mannered performances, subdued and believable, perhaps in reaction to the Brando silliness--but given the talent, several folks seemed to have their heads elsewhere. It is indeed an alternate Western, but unlike the moving Monte Walsh or Open Range, or McCabe And Mrs. Miller, it's largely attitudinal in nature, which may be enough for some.

Just watched it again. Fantastic movie…. time has done wonders for Missouri Breaks! Several scenes appear to be 'natural' (Like when a horse shakes for no reason, mid dialogue – but the acting keeps rolling) The film is also quite dramatic and eery. Really off beat and also quite art- house. Love it. great music score, and funnily enough, very realistic. Plus sides …. Movie Poster (Bob Peak art) wonderful poster. Lovely sparse film score by John Williams. Brando's eccentricity keeps you captivated. Jane Braxton character….very loyal. So many good things about this movie, things that you never see in to-days modern movie making. Missouri Breaks sure packs a punch, even today. A hidden masterpiece worth revisiting indeed.

Leonard Maltin called this the worst "big" movie ever made but i don't see it that way. Rancher brings in killer, played by Brando, to rid area of horse thieves, led by Nicholson. Slow talking Nicholson is great as the laid back and likable horse thief while Brando gives a totally off the wall, but very entertaining performance. Harry Dean Stanton has a prominent role and is great as usual. If they ever make a supporting actors hall of fame, Stanton has to go in right after Strother Martin and Warren Oates.

The critics hated this movie like they hated nearly all Brando flicks because Marlon wouldn't suck up to them. But it's a good show.

Despite THE MISSOURI BREAKS stars Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson it ended a bit in oblivion, and I hoped to see it from a very long time because it stars them. Then on July 2021 it was released OLD by M. Night Shyamalan and the lead always said that Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson did a Western together, and last December I finally saw it. While I didn't loved it, it was merely ok.

Tom Logan (Nicholson) is an horse thief that one day arrives with his gang in Montana and they are responsible of animal theft. For defense, farmer David Braxton hires Robert Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando), a bizarre adventurer that is known as a bounty hunter and manages to kill nearly all of Logan's gang members up until Tom goes to his home and... it's better that you see it for yourselves.

Nicholson acted finely, and that shouldn't come as a surprise. Brando instead was bizarre in this role, not only because he mostly mumbled his lines but because he tried to portray a new character for him that it came off a bit awkward. And despite the pace was a bit too slow from time to time, the tense moments made me appreciate it somehow.

Overall, a unique Western mostly of interest for fans of the leads and for the rest, watchable but nothing more.

You know how things seem So Cool when you're stoned, and then you find them later and shake your head? I think that's what happened to this movie, or, rather, to the people who made this movie: a giant giddy collective lapse of judgment. Many many fine elements, exceptional, sometimes brilliant, but, ungrounded, and wildly self-indulgent. So, doesn't quite work, though you certainly come away (and it's been 20 years since I've seen it) with some indelible images.

Not the only film of the Seventies with this problem, by any means - one that comes to mind is Le Voyou (The Crook) with Trintignant by C Lelouch from 1970 -- it's easy to imagine them watching the rushes through a cloud of smoke and saying "Wow...." Another case of Homer on the nod.

Maybe a bit disjointed, but I liked it, a lot, actually. Lead males were all great, but like so many westerns The Girl was a let-down. With most of the cast playing it pretty straight Brando doesn't seem over the top at all, it works well and is not too silly at all, reminds me of a eccentric uncle combined with Hannibal Lector, without the, you know.... Otherwise a film you should definitely consider watching, if only to see how Brando, Nicholson, and Harry Dean Stanton do a western. I loved it, Brando stole the show. See it to decide for yourself whether you like the direction Brando takes it. There's nothing like it, and this is not a run-of-the-mill western.

Fun-loving criminal Jack Nicholson attempts to keep a low-profile by buying a ranch in order to launder stolen livestock. However, he begins to reconsider his thieving ways when he begins to romance the daughter of a local rancher. Soon he finds himself and his gang targeted by Marlon Brando, a very eccentric and very lethal hired gun.

Though not as bad as some prominent critics would have you believe, nor as brilliant as others insist, this once in a lifetime pairing of Nicholson and Brando is a little bit disappointing.

They're both pretty amusing (especially Brando), but don't really have much to do, at least until the final fifty-minutes or so when Brando gets busy. These two simply should have thrown off more sparks than they did!

Still, this tongue-in-cheek, offbeat western has it's moments, just not as many as director Arthur Penn's Little Big Man.

There's some good support from Randy Quaid, Harry Dean Stanton, Frederick Forrest, and John P. Ryan, as Nicholson's gang.

I can't believe this movie has been so trashed & overlooked over the years. Like Mickey One & Left-Handed Gun, it's one of Arthur Penn's more offbeat & original films. Marlon Brando gives a highly inventive performance & demonstrates once more that he is one of the great comic performers of the screen (as he did more conventionally in Teahouse of the August Moon). To see Jack Nicholson (who is also excellent in this) with Brando is a terrific treat. Glad I found this on Laserdisk.

I believe that the Jokers who appeared in Batman movies relied heavenly on the performance invented by Brando in this movie. He sets the rules for this kind of killers. Since 1970 Brando did not perform in a movie unless he wanted to break a new method of acting. He is experimenting and the new actors were lucky to find all the rules and codes that Brando come up with ready and clean. Strange enough, Critics praise the new actors while back lashing The Great Brando forever..

While Marlon Brando was in his prime, he was considered by many to be a genius actor. In the mid to late part of his career, however, there were some performances that might just indicate that his hold on reality was slipping a bit or perhaps he just didn't care. Some chalked it up to his greatness--and they adored these 'eccentric' performances. Others, just felt confused--after all, he WAS a great actor...but these odd parts just seemed weird and often off-the-cuff. His real-life antics didn't help any--with some VERY high profile occasions where he showed up on sets completely unprepared and unwilling to take conventional direction. With "Apocalyse Now", he showed up---grossly overweight, never having read the novel or screenplay and insisted on doing things 'his way'--which often meant very random method acting that the director, Francis Ford Coppola. Here with "The Missouri Breaks", Brando once again gave a VERY idiosyncratic performance. Like Coppola, Penn ended up just letting Brando do what he wanted and hope it worked.

When the movie debuted, I remember some of the critics being rather harsh with the film--and a few criticized Brando in particular. Now, decades later, I've decided to see some of these later films to make up my own mind. While it's well documented that Brando was odd and difficult on the set, could he still turn out a good performance? Well, while I know it is bound to ruffle a lot of feathers, I will go so far as to day that he was the worst aspect of this film. His acting seemed inconsistent (the accent seemed to come and go) and just plain strange. His behavior when he showed up at the wake seemed whacked out, he had a weird scene with his horse and he also wore a woman's bonnet and dress during one of the scenes late in the film just seemed like a joke. To me, this was all just distracting from the film itself. It's a shame, as the western is a decent 'modern western' (with looser language, grungy costumes and a less glamorous look) by Penn--the same guy who modernized the gangster genre with "Bonnie and Clyde".

In contrast to Brando, I felt that Jack Nicholson was a major plus to the film. While a 'bad boy' by reputation, here he seemed professional and believable....and a bit likable even though he was indeed a rogue. When he was funny (such as the hold up scene), it made sense. In fact, I wanted more of his in the film and a lot less of Brando. Overall, it's a decent western but one that is frustrating at the same time--not bad but if could have been a lot better.

By the way, if you do watch the film, it is rather graphic and adult in its sensibilities. You will NOT mistake this for a Roy Rogers or Gene Autry film!