Rent Rio Bravo (1959)

Highly rated by the critics - Rio Bravo review by CD

This is a very highly rated movie which I felt just about lived up to its rating.  Dean Martin  is excellent and the chemistry between John Wayne, Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson is intriguing.  There is a young and very beautiful Angie Dickinson who falls for Wayne instead of the younger stars! The plot is fairly predictable but Walter Brennan as Stumpy introduces the necessary comedy at times - the baddies are bad enough to deserve what they get but not so bad that they spoil the overall good feeling around the movie.  John Wayne shows his usual grit to great effect.

Classic Western - Superb - Rio Bravo review by GI

Rio Bravo is a pure, unadulterated cinematic western. There's no attempt to mix myth with history here, this is not about taming of the west or pushing the frontier, there's no fighting with Indians, no harsh journeys by wagon train, or the carving of empires on the plains, this is simply an action/adventure story with a big star doing what he does best. Reputedly made as an antidote to High Noon (1952) this is simply a thoroughly enjoyable film, a classic of the genre, unpretentious, occasionally a bit cheesy, fun and a rollicking good yarn. John Wayne is Sheriff John T. Chance of a small Texas town. When he arrests the no-good brother of the local bigwig he finds his jailhouse under siege and with only an alcoholic deputy (Dean Martin) and an old cripple (Walter Brennan) to help him. He finds some solace in the arms of the delicious 'Feathers' (Angie Dickinson) and recruits a fast draw kid for the final showdown (Ricky Nelson - sporting a very 50s 'Elvis' hairstyle). Both Martin and Nelson get to do a song, there's oodles of genre stereotypes and it's overloaded with macho posturing but you can't help just loving it because it sort of gives you what every western should all wrapped up in one neat bundle. It's also massively influential, Quentin Tarantino cites it as one of his all time favourite films and John Carpenter used it's template for his seminal Assault On Precinct 13 (1976). A film that modern audiences need to rediscover.

Legendary Western. - Rio Bravo review by Steve

This was made as a riposte to High Noon which Howard Hawks and John Wayne felt was anti-American, and they mocked the film for the notion that a sheriff would expect the support of his community; he should go out and shoot the bad guys alone. Though, in Rio Bravo, when the outlaws hit town, Duke has enough deputies and allies to fill a minibus.

It imitates the odd couple bromance of Gunfight at the OK Corral. Wayne is the steadfast, sharpshooting Sheriff. Dean Martin is the charismatic, drunken deputy. The films share many similar details, but Rio Bravo is more comic and cartoonish. Minor characters have names like Stumpy and Dude. Angie Dickinson wears feathers and so is called Feathers.

And by the finale, Walter Brennan is throwing sticks of dynamite around like it's Looney Tunes. After Hawks made The Big Sleep he decided that audiences don't care about  thestory, just the comedy and characters. Leigh Brackett wrote both films, and Rio Bravo is a series of archetypal western situations set into a loose narrative. The plot barely matters.

It's a long, episodic film and by the time Dino and Ricky Nelson present a couple of Mariachi ballads, it begins to feel more like a revue. We get a pair of comedy Mexicans and Dickinson reprises the Lauren Bacall persona of earlier Hawks films. But, the director and his star made this to support the human rights abuses of the McCarthy witch hunts. And that really sours the experience.