Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

George Taylor The Duke stars as the patriarch of a ranching family whose grandson is captured by bandits. While he's going to 'pay them' (if pay them means kill them all), he's accompanied by various family members in the meeting with the Richard Boone led bad guys.

SnoopyStyle It's 1909. A gang of outlaws from various background led by John Fain (Richard Boone) attack the McCandles ranch. They kidnap little Jacob McCandles for ransom. Grandmother Martha (Maureen O'Hara) is offered help from the Army and the Texas Rangers but she decides to call on her estrange husband Big Jake (John Wayne). He is a legendary gunfighter and "an extremely harsh and unpleasant kind of man to see it through." Martha gives him a million dollar for the ransom. His son James doesn't like him not having seen him for almost ten years. His other son Michael rides up on a motorcycle with a visual sighting of Jacob. While everybody takes off to hunt down the bandits, Big Jake goes by himself with the money on horseback. An aging Apache friend Sam Sharpnose joins him. The mechanized group is ambushed and their cars are all out of commission. Big Jake finds the group stranded. Michael angrily joins Jake and they find James with his crashed motorcycle.This should be much darker and bloodier. It takes too many detours into comedy which never actually pays off. It's like the movie forgets about the kidnapped boy. This is a lower grade western which seems to be from another era. The formula is getting as old as John Wayne. When the action and the story twist comes, it's not half bad. It just needs to stay out of the comedy. There's nothing funny about the story.

pcsimonson1651 This basic idea of this movie had potential but, the acting was stiff, everyone seemed like they were just saying lines for the sake of saying them, no pathos, no feeling, nothing convincing about the acting or lines can be found in this. Way too much stupid stuff was portrayed by all. The "Rangers" who were supposed to be these great shots, had a hard time even getting close to the ambushers, and they were standing up, like they wanted to get shot! And of course,the ambushers were picking off the Rangers real easy. Way too many unbelievable moments were had by all. Way too many dumb, unconvincing lines by actors that were great in other Wayne films!

MBunge Big Jake is a traditional John Wayne Western with a strangely unacknowledged level of modern savagery. It's got all the adventure and comic relief you'd expect, but every so often the level and intensity of the violence exceeds anything you'd anticipate. Sometimes that contrast appears to be intentional. Sometimes it's just odd. What it does is give this film an edge that makes it stand out from the many other Wayne Westerns.Set in 1909 as 20th Century civilization has finally taken root on the East Coast, this story concerns the still largely untamed American Southwest along the border with Mexico. John Fain (Richard Boone) leads a crew of 8 other vicious killers on a raid of the McCandles ranch, massacring a number of people and kidnapping the grandson of ranch owner Martha McCandles (Maureen O'Hara). Confronted with a million dollar ransom demand for the boy's return, Martha summons her long absent husband Jacob (John Wayne) to deliver the money and get his grandson back. Joined by his faithful dog, his sons James and Michael (Patrick Wayne and Christopher Mitchum) and his old Indian friend Sam Sharpnose (Bruce Cabot), Big Jake McAndles heads out through the beautiful countryside to battle Fain's raiders, greedy cowboys and the bitter resentment of his son James.Amidst the shootouts, brawls, scenery, gags and other elements of the Wayne Western, an interesting theme is woven through Big Jake. This is a tale about how the folks who lived and prospered in the Wild West, both good and bad, weren't all that pleasant. Jacob McAndles is a hard man. His Indian friend is a hard man. His wife is a hard woman. Even his dog is a hard beast. These are people (and an animal) of unflinching will who will risk and inflict death without hesitation. Michael McAndles, whose nicer manners and love of the latest 1909 technology represents the new era, has trouble accepting his father's ruthless violence. Big Jake serves as both an ode to the uncompromising strength needed to tame the frontier, yet doesn't shy away from the rough and unappealing aspects of that strength.That bluntness explains some of the graphic violence in this movie. It's not quite at the level of Sam Peckinpah, but Big Jake is bloodier and more cold blooded than most other Westerns. Not all of the moments of barbarism fit that explanation. For example, two characters meet extremely brutal ends without them having any emotional impact on the other characters.The best parts of this movie are Wayne (unsurprisingly) and his interactions with Bruce Cabot and Richard Boone. Wayne and Cabot mine a lot of humor out of their age, while Wayne and Boone perfectly capture the idea of men who are so tough they don't feel any need to show off. Wayne's scenes with his younger co-stars don't come off as well, particularly when Big Jake has to deal with the obviously forced and exaggerated anger from James, though perhaps that generation gap was on purpose.Big Jake is about a legendary Wild West figure who's so legendary everybody knows him, but they all think he's already dead. But though the movie accepts that the time and place for someone like Big Jake may have been ending, it argues there's still a little more room for that sort of spirit.