Rating of
3/4
What a Great Guy Night Flick
Looneymanthegreat - wrote on 03/22/13
Spartacus and The Duke are cowboy’s who team up (uneasily) in order to take down an armored stagecoach armed with a Gatling gun, basically a horse-drawn tank. That may be the greatest Idea for an action movie ever.
The film follows the Seven Samurai template, a group of unlikely hero’s come together to accomplish something, in this case robbing “the war wagon.” It doesn’t have any great characters or any real intellectual complexity, but it does what it want’s to do very well; IE: create an exciting adventure movie starring two of the most Iconic actors of the era.
I really do like the chemistry between Douglas and Wayne. Their alliance is barely existent (Douglas’ character has been hired by the villain to kill Wayne, and he reminds of it constantly.) That eternal conflict between the protagonists keeps the movie moving forward, and allows for some fantastic one liners.
Honestly this is one of my favorite action movies of all time. I’m a huge John Wayne fan (something I inherited from my father,) and to see him paired with Douglas is just a hoot. It’s got great dialogue, and it blows stuff up in the climax just like a proper action movie should. It’s actually kind of surprising that a movie with these stars, and such a hilariously over the top premise hasn’t been remembered better, I hope its life on DVD is growing.
