Review of The Missouri Breaks (1976) by Willoze T — 29 May 2007

Jane Braxton: Are you an outlaw? Tom Logan: I'm a jackpot farmer with one milk cow and a hundred-square-foot patch of vegetables. Jane: Then how come you have so many guns? Tom: Because I'm a sportsman.

Jane: Why do you have a sawed-off shotgun? Tom: Because I'm a sawed-off sportsman. And speaking of Marlon Brando, I was just thinking about what I'd said with regard to On the Waterfront not being Brando's greatest movie, and I was thinking about The Missouri Breaks, and I flip the channel to Turner and lookie here: The Missouri Breaks is showing.

I call it fate. The supremely gifted Brando plays the "eccentric" gunslinger frightfully well here. Reading cue cards because he didn't want to memorize lines anymore . . . Whatevahs. I don't know if he was on a chocolate and lasagne high when he was making this movie, or if he was just plain off his rocker, but he climbs to the heights of bizarre-dom in this plum role.

And I definitely mean this in a good sense. The word "lurid" comes to mind, for some reason. Yeah, lurid, that's a great adjective, I think, and, well, he is so darn real as this psychotic killer, that he literally scares the chitterlins' outta me every time I watch this.

The scene where he . . . executes Harry Dean Stanton is maximally spine chilling. Flixsters, I caution you in all seriousness, please make note to beware if anyone ever tries the old "round this time of year, Indian summer, you can see the star of Bethlehem" routine on you.

Be prepared. Brando's own death scene, at the hands of Jack Nicholson, after expressing a fairly odd affection for his horse, that opening of the eyes to experience death, is un-freakin'-forgettable.

Nicholson and Brando, eyeball to eyeball. Never ever to happen again in cinematic history. An amazing historical moment. Geez! Just the accents coming and going, Marlon Brando, you are extremely creepy.

Creeeeepy . . . You know what woke yah up? You just had your throat cut.