Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Ketrivie It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Kodie Bird True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Hunter Lanier Roger Ebert introduced "The Cole Rule," which is 'no movie made since 1977 containing a character with the first name "Cole" has been any good.' "The Westerner," starring Gary Cooper as Cole Harden, came out in 1940.The film centers around Harden and Roy Bean (Walter Brennan), the barman and self-proclaimed judge of Vinegaroon, Texas. Bean has a tendency of serving capital punishment as easily as he serves whiskey. When Harden shows up on the scene--the classic drifter who comes from "no place in particular" and who's going "no place special"--telling tales of trysts with Lily Langtry, Bean's hanging ways are brought to a halt, at least for a little while. You see, Bean is madly in love with Langtry, a famous actress, despite not ever meeting or seeing her in the person; in fact, he has pictures of her plastered over nearly ever square-inch of his bar and bedroom. As great as Cooper is as the reluctant hero of above-average intelligence, Brennan is the star, delivering one of--if not the best of--his performances. He inhabits a "judge" Roy Bean who's at both times dangerous and pitiful. In his initial intellectual face- off with Harden--which quickly devolves into empty feats of masculinity--Bean comes off as a fierce, no-nonsense sociopath, incapable of sentiment. However, at the mere mention of Langtry, his face melts into a picture of childish affection. He's so good, that despite being the antagonist, the ways in which the hero manipulates Bean's schoolboy crush are borderline heartbreaking. Brennan rightly won the Academy Award that year. "The Westerner" is also home to one of the all-time great shootouts. It's comically realistic, as these aren't two sharpshooters, but they know how a gun works. So, naturally, they run around, shooting blindly and hiding behind things, as anybody in a shootout would. To boot, there's an orchestra between the two of them, so occasionally a bullet will graze an instrument, creating a natural, offbeat score to match the scene.In 1972, John Huston released another film based on the legend of Bean entitled, "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean," starring Paul Newman as the "judge," which is likewise an outstanding film. It's been a while since I've seen it, so I can't compare the two movies like I wish I could.Given the eclectic personality of the real-life Bean, "The Westerner" is a refreshingly quirky western, and is worthy of its source material.

LeonLouisRicci Entertaining and Glossy Hollywood Product, this Time its a Western. Stagecoach (the one that put John Ford and John Wayne on the map), the Previous Year, Made it Clear that Westerns were an Untapped Gold Mine for an A-List Production. This One was Given the Golden Treatment and it Could Hardly Fail. Gary Cooper and Walter Brennan, Cinematographer Gregg Toland, Nevin Bush Pushing the Pen, and All the Money in the World. What's Not to Like. Well, More than Competent in Many Respects, the Movie also Smacks of a Prefabricated Production. It's a Good Looking bit of Stiffness. Expected Things Happen Expectedly, the Humor, the Tension Between the Sodbusters and the Cattlemen, the Mating of Two Handsome People, and it All Happens with the Rigidness of Some Sort of Cooking Recipe.That was the Hollywood Studio of the Time. Take Very Few Chances and Never Go Off Script. It Works in an Assembly Line Kind of Way. But the Art Suffers. That Type of Production is Fine for Making Cars but Creativity is Hardly a Concern.So Viewers can Enjoy what's Here and They Did and They Do. There are a Few Unexpected Subtleties that can Surprise. For Example Gary Cooper Fingering His Wallet "Inserting" the Lock of Hair. But Overall, the Sympathetic Ending for the Judge is an Abrupt and a Cheat Considering what had Gone Before. Again it's a Studio Concession for a Satisfying Conclusion that Destroys Any Semblance of the Assertion of the Beastly Character that was On Display for the Previous 100 Minutes.

John T. Ryan WHILE TAKING A GREAT many liberties and just plain "Making it up", This is one great film. Although it is a highly fictionalized telling of the story of a real aberration in our nation's march west.THE PRODUCTION OPTS for a sort of round about sympathetic evaluation of self-styled hanging 'Judge' Roy Bean. To be sure, the characterization of the town and the seedy, bucket-of-blood Saloon that doubled as a Court Room for "His Honor" is nasty, crude and ever so down to earth. There is definitely no romanticizing here.THE BUSINESS OF 'Judge' Bean's obsession with a lady he never met, Miss Lily Langtree, singer, is perhaps the one agent of the plot line that humanizes an otherwise monster of a human being. It is this bizarre and intense case of extreme loneliness and longing that actually makes the audience pity this person; rather than despise him. Walter Brennan assayed an outstanding characterization here, right down to the bitter end.AS FAR AS the use of star, Gary Cooper, there is no better example of his great technique and intuitive construction of an on screen persona. Born in England, but raised in the West, the great "Yup" man was an outstanding horseman. This combined with his great talent made for the great understated Western that it was.OTHER CONTRIBUTING FACTORS leading to the successful creation of this production included the supporting cast. Included are: Forrest Tucker, Dana Andrews, Paul Hurst, Chill Wills and, in possibly his best role in a major picture, we have "B" Western & Serial Star, Tom Tyler.BEAUTIFUL OUTDOOR SCENES are used as the backdrop for the highly tense but somehow subtly played drama that unfolds.REMEMBER, AS THE great man once said: "Less is More."

Harry Paulson The thought makes me smile. But the love story between Gary Cooper and the sensational Walter Brennan made me think of it. They sleep together the first night they meet. And when Roy Bean (Brennan) wakes up and Gary Cooper is gone, he goes crazy. He jumps out of bed and runs like the wind trying to find him, stop him from going. The excuse is a curl from Lilly Langtry. But the truth is in Walter Brennan's gaze. William Wyler - another German Hollywood director - gives us a slice of the American West, comparable to the one shown by Taiwanese Hollywood director Ang Lee in the superlative "Brokeback Mountain" The foreign eye looking in. Remarkable. The film is a gem from beginning to end. Don't miss it.