Rio Bravo

directed by Howard Hawks
Category: "Western"
Year of Release:1959
Date Added:05/30/2008
Date Watched:12/07/2005
Description:Sheriff John Chance (John Wayne) arrests Joe Burdette for murder. Joe’s brother Nathan is the largest rancher in the community and hires an army of men to help him get Joe out. Chance only has two deputies, Stumpy (Walter Brennan), an old cripple who stays in the jail and keeps a gun on Joe, and Dude (Dean Martin), an ex-deputy who has become a drunkard but is trying to get straight to help chance.

Chance’s friend Wheeler rides into town with the men from his ranch and offers to help. Nathan hires a man to kill him. Chance and Dude corner the man and kill him, and the fight is on. One of Wheeler’s men, a young gunman named Colorado (Ricky Nelson) keeps his distance at first, but finally steps in to help Chance. Feathers (Angie Dickinson), a young woman staying at the hotel, falls in love with Chance and sticks around hoping he’ll fall for her when the fight is over. There are several more attempts to force Chance to release Joe, but Chance and his men foil all of them. Then Nathan’s men get Dude and demand a trade. While Dude and Joe are walking toward each other between the two groups, Dude tackles Joe and pushed him behind a building. There’s a gun fight between the two groups, but Nathan’s men give up when Chance starts throwing dynamite into the building he’s hiding in. The rest of Nathan’s men clear out, and Chance gets his chance with Feathers.
My Rating:8

Reviews for Rio Bravo

Review - Rio Bravo

Intended by Howard Hawks and John Wayne as a rebuttal to High Noon in which the sheriff asks for help from the people he's supposed to protect.

Actually a very good movie. It was slow-moving and gave a real sense of the waiting for something to happen which seemed realistic. The good-guy characters were great. I didn’t care for Angie Dickinson’s Feathers character, and that ruined the movie a little for me. I didn’t mind that Chance had a girl, I just didn’t like the way Dickinson played her like a ditzy, silly fool.

Reviewed by Roger on 2008-08-06 12:27:07

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