Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Powerful

Best movie of this year hands down!

The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

See it - As the title suggests, this western is about a gunfight - but not just any gunfight. Kirk Douglas and Johnny Cash (that's right, as in "Walk the Line" Johnny Cash) play two retired gunmen who agree to duel to the death in front of a sold-out crowd for money. The film is similar in concept to "The Quick and the Dead," and the viewer must wait until the climactic ending to see who lives and who dies. But perhaps the main question is whether this is a western or a character study. I would lean more toward character study. The movie is a bit slow and the ending is a bit abrupt, but seeing Johnny Cash as a gunslinger is well worth the watch.

Hearing Johnny Cash's tremendous "American Series" albums for the first time last year with a friend,one of the main things which would coming up when we talked about the music,was wondering how Johnny Cash would be in a real Western movie.Feeling one day that I should take a look to see if Cash had actually done a Westen,I was pleasantly surprised to find,that not only had Cash starred in a Western,but he had actually starred in one alongside "Spartacus" himself!:Kirk Douglas. The plot:Slowly heading to the near by town,out law Abe Cross has to make pace when his horses legs suddenly become injured.Taking the struggling horse to a near by vet,Abe tries to pass the time by introducing himself to the local residents.Being standoffish over a stranger having entered "their" town,the residents begin to let their guard down,when sheriff Will Tenneray appears and tells Cross that he will not allow any trouble to occur in this peaceful town.Initially showing a mutual respect towards each other,Will and Abe start to hear whispers around the town over people placing bets for who is the best gunslinger out of the two.Noticing the piles of cash that the betters are gathering,Will and Abe relies the they could get all the cash that they could ever dream of,if they take part in a winner takes all shoot out between each other.View on the film:Featuring in almost every scene of the film,Johnny Cash and Kirk Douglas make Will and Abe into a terrific double act,with Douglas's calculating,calm family man Will being a complete contrast to Cash's rugged,rumbling loner cowboy Abe.Despite the dialogue feeling slightly tied,and lacking the "livly" feel which the two lead actors bring to the movie,screenwriter Harold Jack Bloom cleverly uses the building up of the "main event" to show the worrying effect that hype can have on people.as Will and Abe are almost made obsolete,due to the residents being more focused on bloodsport and money than the personality's of the two individual's.Smartly turning the final shoot out into a blink and you'll miss it boxing KO style match,director Lamont Johnson wonderfully turns the films ending upside down,and leads it into a terrific fantasy area,which allows the movie to end on a mysterious note of "What if ?."

I think I just enjoy this movie because of the actors. The story isn't the best and if you're looking for great art, go elsewhere. But, if you're a fan of Douglas and Cash and would like to see a few other notables on screen, sit back and enjoy the flick with a few beers.

Spoiler Alert I think, there is no "double-end showdown" in the final sequence of this wonderful movie. It's rather the happiest ending this tragedy could possibly get. Tenneray (Douglas) is the less lovable character, he's the one who made a (pretty poor) living from his fame before, he's the one to come out with the idea to kill one another for money, and he's the one who actually dies in the end. The sequence that shows Cross' death is cut between two deaths of Tenneray with Cross as the survivor, simply to show, that he (T) would not really have profited from staying alive - he just would have remained an a**hole. If only one man will get out alive, why not the not-so-bad guy? "Let the good one die!" simply has become a worn out clichee in the last decades among 'ambitious' directors.