Review of The Searchers (1956) by Jon P — 26 Apr 2016
Commonly admired for its luminous landscapes and all-American ideology, The Searchers is the quintessential squeaky clean Western. And it sucks.
John Ford's classic is the very emptiest of 'Cowboys vs Indians' nostalgia, shot in eye-burning Orange technicolor of questionable quality. The opening and closing shots will be remembered for all of cinematic eternity, but the brainless babble in between is a real patience-tester for anyone interested in characters who are either a) interesting or b) human.
The film is made up of go-nowhere journeys and mean-nothing conversations, interspersed with disjointed moments of darkness that make its saccharine characters shriek in shock.
To sum up The Searchers in a sentence: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance rides into a town occupied by mindless orange aliens, realises they're all mindless orange aliens and leaves.
This review of The Searchers (1956) was written by Jon P on 26 Apr 2016.
The Searchers has generally received very positive reviews.
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