It's hard to know what to make of Steve McQueen's penultimate movie. He played the title character in "Tom Horn" (1980). The dying actor looks more run-down than the character who breaks horses, rides down cattle thieves, and romances Linda Evans. Still, his character was supposed to be at the end of the line and the ailing actor adds poignancy to the movie at no extra cost to the film-makers.

But what did they think they were doing? The answer seems to be "going through the motions." The telling of the story/ies is very disjointed and perfunctory. Major plot turns make no sense to me (whether they are historically accurate, I don't know). Titles at the start of the movie tell the viewer that Tom Horn had been a scout in the Apache wars and was credited for bringing Geronimo in alive. Then Tom Horn wanders into a generic western saloon and gets in a fight with "Gentleman Jim" Corbett. Why the soon-to-be heavyweight champion is in a small Montana town's saloon is anyone's guess.

A rancher, John C. Coble (the sweetly reasonable Richard Farnsworth who had been around in Hollywood westerns for a long time and was about to become a late-blooming star in "The Gray Fox") takes charge of the battered Injun-fighter. At a lobster dinner (in what is supposed to be Wyoming, but is obviously Arizona, neither of which were places Maine lobsters could reach easily in the late-19th century), the ranchers' association hires Tom to deal expeditiously (which is to say, extra-judiciously) with the rustlers who are more than decimating their herds.

Horn is a crack shot and invulnerable even for a Hollywood western hero. In seemingly short order and single-handedly (OK, with his trusted horse), he has the outlaws dislodged from the area. He's also having a romance with the local school marm (Linda Evans). Her only apparent motivation is mating with the movie's star. There is no chemistry and no obvious affinity—not that the film gives the players much chance to show any. The end of the relationship is shown even more perfunctorily than its beginning and middle. I don't know why it was broken off, but Tom Horn must be sad about it, because there are melancholy flashbacks to it when he is in a jail cell.

And how did he get there? With their problem with rustlers solved, the ranchers' association does not dismiss Tom. None of its members suggests he move on. Instead, they frame him for a murder, with the connivance of a U.S. Marshall (Billy Bush) who resents being overshadowed, especially since he has political ambitions. I don't understand why the ranchers don't want to acknowledge they hired Tom Horn or why they need to go to the lengths of trumping up murder charges and having a trial and execution. Maybe I'm expecting too much in the way of psychological exposition. Just as the male lead must hook up with the female lead, the end of the west mood requires the hero be humiliated and made to disappear.

Throughout his career, McQueen showed an ability to absorb a lot of punishment and continue not to do anything the easy way. As the jailed Tom Horn, he does not give his enemies (that is, those he helped out) the satisfaction of defending himself from their fabrications. He goes to his death as a slightly bemused samurai who can be slain but not humiliated.

As I've said, the plotlines don't make sense and motivations are either missing altogether or perfunctory. What the movie has going for it are convincing renditions of western archetypes, particularly McQueen's rifleman and Slim Pickens's blustery sheriff unhappy about what the powers-that-be make him do. Farnsworth's rancher is less standard, and, thereby, more enjoyable for those who are not fans of Hollywood westerns.

The movie has a very "arty" look (and art-house fatalistic bleakness, too, I'd say). It doesn't look like Wyoming, but Old Tucson and the southern Arizona mountains were photographed with great artistry by John Alonzo (who shot "Chinatown" — and the hyper-scenic Cross Creek in which the countryside also overshadows the story).

The screenplay credited to Tom McGuane and/or the direction by William Wiard (who mostly worked in television) fail to provide much in the way of story or characterization, but veteran actors and a great cinematographer give audiences something to look at for the 98-minute running time.


Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age