ScoobyWell Great visuals, story delivers no surprises

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

Matho The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

morrison-dylan-fan Getting near the end of the TV shows/films I had gathered up to view from Christmas,I decided to check what titles had been added to Netflix UK. Enjoying the breezy Western Rachel and the Stranger a few months ago,I was pleased to find a Western starring "Big Bob" Mitchum had been added to the site,which led to getting set to find out how wonderful this country could be.The plot:After killing the murderer who killed his dad, Martin Brady has been living in exile in Mexico. Crossing paths with the Castro brothers,Brady is hired to go undercover and get weapons in the US. Traveling undercover,Brady is stopped in his tracks by a broken leg. Treated by the weapons sellers,Brady is introduced to Major Colton,who wants to set a deal that will cross boarders that will have the Castro brothers on the same front. View on the film:Looking surprisingly fresh faced, Mitchum gives a charming performance as Brady,whose exiled state allows Mitchum to give Brady rugged heroics, which is lassoed with a troubling sense of doubt over Brady ever getting the chance to return to the wonderful country. Riding into the sunset with Mitchum, Gary Merrill gives a great performance as Colton,who is given by Merrill a striking feeling of being unable to find light in the dark clouds above.Traveling the country from Tom Lea's (who has a cameo) novel,the screenplay by Robert Ardrey & Walter Bernstein leaves the barroom fights to draw a thoughtful Folk tale Western. Running from the US after getting revenge for the killing of his dad,the writers do very well at making each of the separate groups Brady becomes entangled in ones that drive his desire to walk back into the country of his family. Gathering the bullets for Brady,director Robert Parrish gives Brady's exiled state an elegant sun dried appearance,burning with dry reds hit by Apaches,as Brady tries to get back to the wonderful country.

Dfree52 This offbeat 1959 western stars the laconic Robert Mitchum as gunslinger Martin Brady, a Texas outlaw and outcast who fled to his adopted country Mexico as a youth. He works for the corrupt Castro brothers of whom he finds out much too late that he's just a pawn they move about their chessboard (Northern Mexico) as they please.The film's major flaw is the narrative...it's a bit jumpy in spots but may have fallen victim studio intervention. Some characters seem to enter briefly, to be seen no more or are underdeveloped. Julie London's Helen Colton seems to fall victim to that. She's an ex dance hall girl (I believe), now a 'respected' wife of Major Colton (Gary Merrill) who engages in an affair with Brady out of pure lust.But Brady...who's growing older and wearier it seems before our eyes, sees her as his redemption. His guns have cost him heavily, he has no family or lover or even respect. All he has is Mexico and that has betrayed him too. If you're expecting an action packed, shoot them up...this is not for you.There are elements here we see in later films...we get a taste of Mexican culture, which Brady identifies more with than America, that we see in The Magnificent Seven and The Wild Bunch. And Paul Newman's John Russell in Hombre, mirrors Brady here. All are men without countries, men who cling to a culture or code American society shuns.The locations, photography and music (Alex North) all help create an atmosphere of majestic isolation. And the inclusion of black Buffalo soldiers is all too rare in westerns, even today. As one reviewer stated earlier, it could have been more. But there's still a lot here.

theskulI42 An understated and underseen little character-driven western, The Wonderful Country has a touching melancholy soul, but has a serious, nagging nagging problem with pacing that leaves it feeling undercooked.The film deals with a man, Martin Brady (Robert Mitchum), who is a native Texan, but long ago fled to Mexico after killing his father's murderer. There, he got in with a dangerous criminal gang led by the Castro brothers, and as the film starts, he is escorting an illegitimate shipment of gold and guns into the small Texas town of Puerto. There, his horse, Legrimas (Spanish for "tears") gets spooked by some tumbleweed and he ends up breaking his leg, not only losing his shipment but becoming stranded in Puerto, where he makes friends and enemies all around town: in the former, German apprentice "Chico" (Max Slaten) and the Major's wife (Julie London, who has a giant face). But when the angry drunk town doctor (Charles McGraw) ends up fatally wounding Chico and Martin has to kill him in self defense, he and Legrimas must flee again, adrift in the emptiness, without a home.Much of the film's glories hang on the mug of Robert Mitchum, and his performance is virtuoso. In addition to being saddled with a thick faux-Mexican accent (that always threatens to become a distraction but is kept in check), he gets a damaged character that almost wholly internalizes his emotions, and manages to make him understandable. The rest of the supporting cast is a combination of random 'name' actors and forgettable role players, with Pedro Armendariz and Satchel Paige (!) showing up unexpectedly, and Julie London and Gary Merrill giving clipped, underfed performances for likewise roles.That ends up being the biggest problem with the film: everything feels clipped, rushed, undercooked. In the opening third where he is forced to stay in town, he not only recovers from an apparently serious broken leg in about a dozen minutes of screen time, and when he begins some sort of vague "love affair" with Major Colton's wife, it ends up meaning almost nothing. The summation of their 'relationship' ends up being a couple scenes where she makes eyes at him, then he leaves, then they meet again later, and lay this insane guilt trip on each other and talk about all these bad things that they "did", and...unless I passed out and missed several scenes, talk and glare is all that they did.The film also gives short shrift to pretty much every character supporting Mitchum. Characters float in, do something, usually one single thing, maybe slightly pivotal, and that action sends Mitchum somewhere else, and then disappears. Even the main relationship they intend to develop (between Brady and his "horse named Tears") gets most of its traction from allusion and assumption that I had to infer myself than any direct action, physical or mental).The general idea, the subtext the film wants to put forth is the wandering sadness of its protagonist, the 'wonderful country' is meant somewhat sarcastically since, while it is undeniably beautiful, Martin has no home, no place of residence within that wonderful country, and he keeps getting ousted from every comfortable place. The problem is, while he goes back and forth between Mexico and the US several times, each sequence is so short and ends so suddenly that none of them end up having much impact, and had Robert Parrish given his film some time to breath and stretch its dramatic legs, it might have been as memorable and emotional as its tone wanted to be, but at a scant hour and thirty-eight minutes, the film's memory diminishes by the minute, fading from view like a passing highway sign.{Grade: 6/10 (C+) / #22 (of 33) of 1959}

fcasnette just caught this thoughtful film on TV again.not a particular Mitchum fan, but here he is gives a wonderful world weary performance as the "outside man" gradually learning kindness and companionship and friendship against the odds of his upbringing and circumstances and the hand that fate has dealt him.Not a particular shoot em up type western but a film about belonging and extricating yourself from a bad lot when down a blind alley. Just watch as he reacts to the little kindnesses as he recovers from his injury or the final scene with his beloved horse, lovely low key acting.Beautiful photography too. Passes a lazy afternoon very nicely.