Rent Junior Bonner (1972)

Great 70s American Drama - Junior Bonner review by GI

Junior Bonner is one of the great unsung American films of the 70s. A wonderful elegiac film that continues Sam Peckinpah's themes of the loss of a past age. On the surface this is a story of Junior (Steve McQueen in one of his best roles), a washed up rodeo rider desperate for one last victory, who returns home for a tournament but also to reconnect with his wayward father, Ace (Robert Preston in a superb performance) and lonely mother Ellie (Ida Lupino). Underlying this narrative is a story of changing times, of modernity destroying the old ways (you can find this theme in many of Peckinpah's best films). An early scene shows Junior witnessing the bulldozing of his father's ramshackle ranch house with the rodeo standing in for the simple yet tough life of the cowboy. Using split frames and altering ratios Peckinpah employs a rich and nostalgic vision of a dying past. Joe Don Baker plays Curly who represents a borderline corrupt but definitely materially greedy future while Junior and Ace are the past, and it's a past doomed to be lost. This is a marvellous film, you'll be hard pushed to find a movie as good as this today.