Joe Kidd
Dir: John Sturges
1972
**
John Sturges's version of Sergio Leone's 'Man-With-No-Name' films is a big lazy disappointment. Maybe casting Clint Eastwood in the title role was a mistake, probably not as far as box-office takings go but in casting him there was always going to be comparisons to Leone's far superior Spaghetti western trilogy. It's your typical Eastwood western, and when I say typical I mean that most of Eastwood's westerns are bog standard and overrated, Joe Kidd being a good example of that. It's part A Fistfull of Dollars, part Dirty Harry without being as good as either. It's other mistake is that it doesn't know what it wants to be. The Mexican is the alternative Red Indian and while we are asked to sympathies with them, they are still somewhat the bad guys. The other bad guys are the Americans, who some will see as good guys being bad and our leading man is the good guy but is still 'bad' all the same. Westerns are either Liberal or Republican, you just can't have it both ways.