Missouri Breaks

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.

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.

Anyone who does not know very much about Marlon Brando may not enjoy this film.

Brando had made his reputation as a great actor years before. It was probably made just to put two of the best actors-- Jack Nickelson and Marlon Brando in a film together for the first and only time.

Brando and Nickolson together, beautiful photography of Montana and some standard cowboy movie script-- thats all. The story is not important. It's just fun to see Brando pulling out a bag of tricks and seeing him have fun.

One small trick is that he is always eating or chewing on something as he talks. This may have been an insider joke because at this stage in his life he was fat. Nickelson might have done better acting .

So if you want to see Brando having fun see this movie. If you are looking for movie with great story see something else.

This movie is on my list as one of the best.

I give it ********* an 8 of 10.

Marlon Brando died yesterday. I just got the news and felt compelled to comment on this flick specifically, because it seems that whenever I ask of self-professed Brando or western fans, "Have you seen Missouri Breaks?" the answer is, "No."

But what a great western! And what a great performance by Brando! Yes, it is 'quirky;' yes, Brando uses a different accent in nearly every scene; and yes, his performance seems at times almost improvised, shooting off in unexpected and rewarding directions. For all this quirkiness, however, I never once felt that the character's affectations were Brando's, or that Brando was somehow on-the-outside-looking-in, overly pleased at his own theatrical acrobatics. This is a brilliant man at work here, living in the moment, a vessel of the character. This has always amazed me about Brando's work: that working from the inside, he can so transform the outside--the physicality and mannerisms of his characters.

Good bye, Mr. Brando, and thank you.

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.