Rio Bravo (Two-Disc Special Edition)

Rio Bravo (Two-Disc Special Edition) Review

Tension fills this 2 hour plus film notwithstanding that there's not much real action in this classic western starring John Wayne and Dean Martin. The film was directed by Howard Hawks, but if someone told you that it was really directed by Alfred Hitchcock you might, after watching this film, say hmmm that's interesting; in short, you might half believe it. It's a character study of several book-ended by a dramatic opening confrontation and a rousing concluding showdown. It's hard not to compare this film with "High Noon" because that film too seems to to be a spring that is continually coiled until everything is unleashed at its end, but nobody is really particularly likable in "High Noon" and while the tension builds one doesn't really come to like more and more the players herein as one might in "Rio Bravo." The tension continues in "Rio Bravo" but you never have the feeling that an hour glass is generating it which inclines one, I believe, to not so much as look forward to its conclusion as enjoy each minute of the film and, to some extent, not welcome the moment when the film begins to wrap things up for you. It's theatrical in the sense that it is just plain good theater and the characters, albeit on a screen and not on stage in front of you, are just enjoyable to watch as you grow to like and respect more and more of them over the course of this ensemble performance. It's a film, moreover, that one can watch over and over which bespeaks that this is one fine film.

Rio Bravo (Two-Disc Special Edition) Overview

In the dusty town of Rio Bravo, Sheriff Chance arrests Joe Burdette for a brutal murder and must fight off ruthless gunmen to keep him in custody unti

Rio Bravo (Two-Disc Special Edition) Specifications

When it comes down to naming the best Western of all time, the list usually narrows to three completely different pictures: John Ford's The Searchers, Howard Hawks's Red River, and Hawks's Rio Bravo. About the only thing they all have in common is that they all star John Wayne. But while The Searchers is an epic quest for revenge and Red River is a sweeping cattle-drive drama ("Take 'em to Missouri! Yeeee-hah!"), Rio Bravo is on a much more modest scale. Basically, it comes down to Sheriff John T. Chance (Wayne), his sobering-up alcoholic friend Dude (Dean Martin), the hotshot new kid Colorado (Ricky Nelson), and deputy-sidekick Stumpy (Walter Brennan), sittin' around in the town jail, drinkin' black cofee, shootin' the breeze, and occasionally, singin' a song. Hawks--who, like his pal Ernest Hemingway, lived by the code of "grace under pressure"--said he made Rio Bravo as a rebuke to High Noon, in which sheriff Gary Cooper begged for townspeople to help him. So, Hawks made Wayne's Sheriff Chance a consummate professional--he may be getting old and fat, but he knows how to do his job, and he doesn't want amateurs getting mixed up in his business; they could get hurt. This most entertaining of movies also achieved some notoriety in the '90s when Quentin Tarantino (director of Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, and Jackie Brown) revealed that he uses it as a litmus test for prospective girlfriends. Oh, and if the configuration of characters sounds familiar, it should: Hawks remade Rio Bravo two more times--as El Dorado in 1967, with Wayne, Robert Mitchum, and James Caan; and as Rio Lobo in 1970, with Wayne, Jack Elam, and Christopher Mitchum. --Jim Emerson

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