Rio Lobo, a review by Antares
Rio Lobo (1970)
40/100 - There is nothing sadder than when a film maker doesn't know when to stop making films and retire. Almost every great director has suffered this malady and Howard Hawks was no exception.
Rio Lobo is Hawks' swan song and instead of mirroring the symphonic sagebrush set pieces of his glorious past, it plays like an out of tune saloon piano. It's said that
"the third time's the charm", but not in this case. All the freshness of the two previous incarnations of this story (
Rio Bravo,
El Dorado) are long since past the expiration date. As I was re-watching this film, I wondered what John Wayne must have been thinking when he arrived for the shoot and realized what a train wreck he was about to embark on. Jennifer O'Neill, the leading lady of the film, is such a bad actress, she makes Angie Dickinson's performance in
Rio Bravo look like an Oscar winning performance by Meryl Streep. Jack Elam, who just two years earlier, had an iconic, short lived performance in Leone's
Once Upon a Time in the West, is instead forced to recreate the drunken, crazy kind of character he played in
Support Your Local Sheriff. Jorge Rivero, who was a star in Mexico, seems to be out of his league in his first Hollywood production. But what really lets this film down, is the rather cheap looking sets. There's one scene where Rivero is talking to O'Neill, and the film cuts back and forth between the two. In the background, behind Rivero, are painted clouds on a canvas. Rivero is standing still, yet the clouds never move. The film is peppered with these cheesy looking moments and you can't help but think, that the studio didn't want to invest too much money on what they must have known, was going to be a dud.
Teal = Masterpiece
Dark Green = Classic or someday will be
Lime Green = A good, entertaining film
Orange = Average
Red = Cinemuck
Brown = The color of crap, which this film is(From Antares' Short Summations on February 23rd, 2015)
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May 14, 2024, 10:21:56 PM
