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Joe Kidd

6.0

3,117

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Original title

Joe Kidd

Year

1972

Running time

88 min.

Country

United States

Director

John Sturges

Screenwriter

Elmore Leonard

Cast

Music

Lalo Schifrin

Cinematography

Bruce Surtees

Producer

Universal Pictures

Genre

Western

Synopsis

Joe Kidd (Eastwood) comes in 1900 to the New Mexican town of Sinola, where Luis Chama (Saxon) is leading the local Mexican-Americans in a protest against the illegal acquisition of their land. Joe Kidd, in jail after a drunken spree, watches as Chama's crowd, enraged by the judge (Carter) who refuses to listen to their woes, steals the forged land grants from the courthouse and sets them on fire. The rebels are about to kidnap the judge, but he's saved by Kidd. A posse is formed, and Kidd is invited to join it. Led by Frank Harlan (Duvall), they take more Mexican-Americans hostage and threaten to kill five of them unless Chama surrenders. Kidd is becoming convinced that Harlan's tactics are cruel.

Critics' reviews

"A curiously strangled Western which can't make up its mind whether it wants to wring straight action out of the range war between poor Mexicans and a tycoon rancher"

Time Out
"John Sturges' direction is sufficiently compelling to keep guns popping and bodies falling."

Variety Staff: Variety
"Nothing remarkable, but modestly decent—a feeling that persists, with continually diminishing assurance, almost until the climax, when everything is thrown away in a flash of false theatrics"

The New York Times
"Not particularly complicated, and sometimes as confused as it is concise, 1972’s Joe Kidd is nonetheless a lean, reasonably satisfying slice of Clint Eastwood outlaw badassery."

Nick Schager: AV Club
"The photography is undeniably beautiful, but there comes a point when we've had too many mountains and too little plot (...) Rating: ★★ (out of 4)"

Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun-Times
"Bad editing, uninspired direction, and a script that teetered precariously on the verge of parodying a John Wayne movie combined to make Joe Kidd nothing more than a plodding shoot-em-up."

TV Guide

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User history

Joe Kidd

1972

John Sturges

6.0

(3,117)