Best movie of this year hands down!

Undescribable Perfection

Perfect cast and a good story

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Henry Hathaway, a man who knew how to shoot scenery, apparently forgot how to make a decent movie with 1971's Shoot Out. This quickie flick, destined for the NBC Saturday Night Movie about 10 minutes after its theatrical run, has Gregory Peck being peckish, about a minute of James Gregory being the baddie that double-crossed Peck, Robert F. Lyons as the psycho gunslinger hired by Gregory, and 7-year-old Dawn Lyn as the cutesy, foul-mouthed little 'un dumped on Peck when he gets released from prison for a robbery gone sideways.You also get the startle of seeing a hooker's slobber-covered boobs in the saloon's back room. And this thing got a GP?Hathaway's talent for lovely landscapes is lost on the viewer trying to translate the grammar-challenged westernese that spills out of everyone's mouth and with the grimacing from the scenery-chewing bad-guy behavior that would make anyone long for the quiet rationality of Richard Widmark's sociopath in Kiss of Death or the social responsibility of Andy Robinson in Dirty Harry.Just to show you how stolid Peck got toward the end of his big-star career, he gets the chance to have a heart-to-heart with a farm widow (a pretty, curvy actress named Patricia Quinn), and when she opens up to him about how lonely she is, how she drinks herself to sleep every night pining away for a man in bed, Peck doesn't kiss her or make goo-goo eyes at her, he grasps her head, and I thought, "My God, he's gonna check her teeth!"It's amazing how snarky one can get when watching a bastard stink- pot western.

Gregory Peck occasionally played ambiguous, morally conflicted characters in films like "Moby Dick" and "The Bravados", but rarely played outright villains, "The Boys from Brazil" being an exception. It therefore comes as something of a surprise to see Hollywood's Mr Clean here cast as Clay Lomax, a bank robber released from jail after serving his sentence. We quickly realise, however, that despite his murky past Lomax is to be the good guy in this movie. He is out for revenge on Sam Foley, his former partner-in-crime, who double-crossed him and attempted to kill him. He learns that Foley has never been convicted for any of his crimes and is now a wealthy and outwardly respectable rancher. Oddly enough, Foley is not the film's main bad guy either; his is a relatively small role. He has, however, learned of Lomax's release and has hired three young gunslingers to keep an eye on his former associate who he believes (correctly) will come looking for him. It is the leader of this trio, Bobby Jay Jones, who functions as the film's villain-in- chief. He and his fellow-thugs are under strict orders from Foley not to shoot or kill Lomax, but this does not prevent them from killing anyone else who crosses them or gets in their way. The title "Shoot Out" is a bit misleading as, although the film contains plenty of shooting, there is no single climactic "O K Corral"-style gunfight. (The novel on which it was based had a different title, "The Lone Cowboy").Peck's career went into something of a decline in the late sixties and early seventies; few of his films from this period are of top quality; "MacKenna's Gold" is another sub-standard Western from around the same time. Earlier in his career, however, he had made some excellent Westerns, notably "The Big Country" and "The Bravados", both of which can also be characterised as "revenge Westerns", although they deal with the theme in a rather more thoughtful way than "Shoot Out". "The Big Country" deals with a meaningless blood-feud between two families, neither of whom can remember who committed the original wrong which started the cycle of revenge. In "The Bravados", Peck's character might seem to have ample grounds for his campaign of revenge on the bad guys, but he later comes to regret his actions. "Shoot Out", however, is not in the same class. There is a misguided attempt to inject a note of sentimental humour; an important sub-plot involves Lomax becoming the guardian of a six-year-old girl named Decky who turns out to be his illegitimate daughter by his now-deceased mistress, conceived just before he went into jail. (Decky's peculiar forename is never explained; while watching the film I misheard it as "Debbie"). Now young Dawn Lyn was obviously an adorable child, but she was the sort of adorable child who would have been more at home in a sweet family comedy than in a hard-boiled revenge Western, and the scenes in which she appears do not blend in well with the rest of the film. Another thing I disliked was the treatment of Bobby Jay and his sidekicks. They are obviously intended to be evil, but are portrayed in such an exaggerated, cartoonish manner that they come across as simple pantomime villains and never really seem very threatening. This sort of thing was not unusual around this time; "Hannie Caulder" and "Will Penny" are two other examples of otherwise serious Westerns which suffer from a tendency to overplay the bad guys. Perhaps this was done here to try and offset the fact that Lomax, the supposed hero of the film, has himself been far from admirable. At one time the censors might have objected to a hero who was not only an unrepentant bank robber but also the father of an illegitimate child, but by 1971 the Production Code was dead and buried, and the protagonists of Westerns no longer needed to be 100% clean cut. It does, however, seem rather self-defeating to give your film a flawed hero and then to camouflage his flaws by exaggerating the villainy of his enemies. This was the penultimate film directed by Henry Hathaway; I must admit that I have never seen his last, "Hangup", and from what I can gather not too many other people have either. Two years earlier Hathaway had made the highly successful "True Grit" which had given John Wayne's career a new lease of life and had brought him his only Oscar. Tthe two films also shared the same producer (Hal B. Willis) and screenwriter (Marguerite Roberts) and had a similar theme in that they teamed an ageing male star with a young girl, although the character played by Kim Darby is rather older than Decky. The team were obviously hoping that they could do for Peck what they had done for Wayne, but to succeed in this aim they really needed a better vehicle than this one. 5/10

Shoot Out is directed by Henry Hathaway and adapted to the screen by Marguerite Roberts from the novel The Lone Cowboy by Will James. It stars Gregory Peck, Patricia Quinn, Robert F. Lyons, Susan Tyrrell and Dawn Lyn. Music is by Dave Grusin and cinematography by Earl Rath. Plot has Peck playing Clay Lomax, who is out of prison after 7 years and seeking revenge on the partner who shot him in the back during a robbery. But Lomax soon finds he has company in the young child form of Decky Ortega (Lyn), who has been sent to him by his one time lover Teresa, sadly now deceased.Just do your little chore, punk.It took a whack from critics of the day, and even now it only seems to have a handful of fans prepared to stand up and say they enjoy it very much. Shoot Out is not a great film, well actually the location work is certainly great, but it is a very rich and warm Western. The problems are hard to argue against, Peck is not adept at playing a vengeful bastard in his later years, the villains are of the near cackling pantomime kind, and a number of cheap money saving tactics are employed by an on the wane Hathaway. Yet the action hits the right notes, Peck's unfolding relationship with the adorable Lyn is heart warming, and the elder female characters-put upon prostitute desperately seeking a way out (Tyrrell)/plain Jane homemaker who drinks to forget her unfulfilled lot (Quinn)-are afforded intelligence in the writing. While some of the location photography, in Technicolor, is gorgeous as Earl Rath gets excellent value out of the New Mexico and California landscapes. And hey! There's even a cameo by the always awesome Arthur Hunnicutt.I'm giving it a generous 7/10 because it's not deserving of the scorn poured on it elsewhere. If only for the central father/daughter relationship, the scenery and a neat flip-flop pay back scenario, this is recommended to Peck and Western fans. Just don't expect True Grit like some apparently did!

This film from a novel titled ¨The last cowboys¨ and adapted by Marguerite Roberts (True grit) deals with Clay Lomax (Gregory Peck) , he leaves the prison and seeking vengeance of his former partner named Foley (James Gregory) who double-crossed him . He carries the revenge in his heart after suffering the treason . He embarks on his vendetta and during his quest he gets stuck an eight-year-old little girl . Meanwhile , Foley contracts a young gunfighter (a violent , savage Robert F. Lions) who along with other gunmen (Pepe Serna and John Davis Chandler) abduct a prostitute (Susan Tyrell) and after that , they go out in pursuit Lomax .An average Western revenge story plenty of violence , action and shoot'em up ; though the veteran director Hathaway is uninspired and the ending is pretty predictable . The film relies heavily on the continuous relationship between the tiring gunslinger and the orphaned girl . The picture is well played by Gregory Peck in one of his last Westerns (he starred ¨McKenna gold¨ , ¨Big country¨ , ¨Stalking moon¨ , ¨The gunfighter¨). The movie displays a wide plethora of secondary actors usually seen in Western genre : Jeff Corey (True grit) as an old brawler in wheelchair , the usual Arthur Hunnicutt (El Dorado), Paul Fix , Rita Gam (Tomahawk) , Willis Bouchey's last film and the habitual cocky nasty named John Davis Chandler . Evocative and imaginative musical score by Dave Grusin . The motion picture was regularly directed by Henry Hathaway in his last film along with ¨Raid on Rommel¨ , both made in 1971 . Hathaway hired Ben Johnson for the lead role but he turned it down . Henry was an excellent filmmaker who directed several classic Westerns , such as ¨True grit¨ , ¨Sons of Katie Elder¨ , ¨Nevada Smith¨ ,¨Rawhide¨ , ¨How the west was won¨ (also with Gregory Peck) , among others . The film will appeal to Gregory Peck fans.