Review of Wild Rovers (1971) by Noel V — 04 Sep 2011

Wild Rovers is possibly Blake Edward's masterpiece, a sometimes comical, sometimes violent, mostly mournfully tender film about two cowhands who decide to rob a bank. Not a perfect film--the bits that seemed borrowed from Peckinpah look exactly that, borrowed--but you might call this Edwards' reply to Peckinpah, that a film can be unflinching and still be concerned about other things than machismo, mayhem and madams.

Edwards has a surer, gentler grasp of comedy than Peckinpah (bits of the funny stuff in The Wild Bunch is hard to take), his view of his characters feels more rueful, more subdued (an arguably more difficult achievement I submit), sometimes as densely textured and detailed as a Larry McMurtry western.

The widescreen photography is not just shallowly gorgeous--Edwards seems to have a genuine grasp of how to fill all that wide space with interesting compositions.