Phonearl Good start, but then it gets ruined

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Seraherrera The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

sol- An idealistic young officer teams up with an experienced scout to track down a group of murderous Apaches in this popular western drama written by 'Night Moves' screenwriter Alan Sharp and directed by Robert Aldrich. Burt Lancaster has the lead role of the old scout, Richard Jaeckel can be found among the supporting cast and the film is shot by Oscar winning DOP Joseph F. Biroc. With such strong talent both behind and in front of the camera, 'Ulzana's Raid' is a classy production and refreshingly grisly and graphically violent for a western of its era. The crux of the story though is the young officer's growing disillusionment with his quest and gradual realisation that some people out there are simply sadistic and evil - a character arc a little too trite and formulaic to click. Bruce Davison is a solid actor in general (very effective in 'Last Summer' and 'The Strawberry Statement' only a few years earlier) but he is simply grating as the young officer here, constantly preaching his religious beliefs and constantly asking rhetorical questions in a non-rhetorical way. He seems like a child at times with his apparent oblivion to evil existing in the world and frequent claims of good existing in everyone. The film almost makes up for this with a nice subplot involving Jorge Luke as an Apache helping Lancaster and Davison in their quest with some very pronounced internal dilemmas. Some apparently regard the film as a Vietnam War allegory, but it can be appreciated allegorical connections aside, even if it is hardly a flawless production.

Anssi Vartiainen Ulzana's Raid is a pretty efficient period piece about the horrors of the Indian Wars. It tells the tale of a young lieutenant Garnett DeBuin (Bruce Davison) as he is given the command to track and apprehend a small Apache war party, which has left the reservation led by their leader Ulzana (Joaquín Martínez). With him he has a veteran tracker and army scout McIntosh (Burt Lancaster).The star power of Lancaster, and to a lesser degree Martínez and Davison, cannot be denied. He is a classic gruff and tainted hero of American Wild West, shaded by life, but still willing to travel to the ends of the Earth for the right cause. Ulzana is also an intimidating figure, though given a pretty stereotypical treatment as the savage Indian, but at least they made him calculating and intelligent. DeBuin is the focus character, through whom we experience the story, and it's nice to see him growing from a total greenhorn into an actual officer.Unfortunately the story is extremely dull. Some might call it classic, I call it stereotypical and predictable. Nothing new is tried, it's merely old scenes and tricks after another. I could have told you how the story's going to end after the first five minutes.The pacing is also agonizingly slow and the dialogues are not interesting enough to give our characters any depth. Partly this is because of the time period and the conventions of the genre, but mostly it's just weak script.Ulzana's Raid is not the worst western I've seen, but it epitomizes all the things that I don't like about the genre. It's slow, formula-driven and ultimately pretty uninteresting.

LeonLouisRicci Above average western with some brutal violence and some talky exploration of the Whiteman vs Indian philosophy and behavior. The then trend of social commentary started making its way into the movie western. There had been a long film history, with a few notable exceptions, of portraying Native Americans as mad dog, heathen horribles that were destroying the White Man's manifest destiny and needed extermination or at the very least interment. They were less than human.That ethnocentric egotism is here but at least it is articulated and a skeptical scope is put on both sides. Make no mistake, the Indians are the villains here, but the invading, trespassing intruders will pay a heavy price, as do they. The lesson here is not politically correct, it is an inconvenient consistency, White is right and the Darkman is at best a Noble Savage who wears feathers instead of hats.

Robert J. Maxwell Nobody can accuse the writer (Alan Sharp) or the director (Robert Aldrich) of an excess of political correctness in this movie. The Chiracahua Apache Ulzana and his dozen or so followers are pretty brutal characters. They torture captives, rape women, mutilate the dead bodies of their enemies and are generally pitiless.As a matter of historical fact, the Indians of the high plains and the Southwest didn't fight according to the rules of fair play that governed Western armies. I don't know about rape. The ethnographies are too genteel to get into it. But the Apache in particular were given to deboning some prisoners beginning with the fingertips. And not just the warriors. The Mojave men turned their wounded captives over to the women, who REALLY knew how to deal with them. But let me get off that subject because it's beginning to remind me of my marriage.Ulzana is dissatisfied with the treatment his tribe is receiving on the reservation so he leads his band off on a series of raids, pursued by a green lieutenant (Davison), a detail of cavalry troopers, Burt Lancaster as the weary scout, and Jorge Luke as the reformed Apache guide. So far, so routine.But this is fairly well done. The renegade Indians may be savage but the troopers show that they can mutilate bodies too. And the inexperienced but well-meaning lieutenant reveals some subtle expressions of prejudice against a different race or, more accurately, a different culture. The script doesn't justify or explain the difference between the cavalry and the Indians. Rather, it describes them, and with reasonable accuracy. For instance, the Apache are shown as especially adept at fighting on foot, which was the case.Lancaster doesn't seem to put much into the role, a little surprising given his social and political leanings. Bruce Davison as the lieutenant is quite good. It's too bad he looks fourteen years old because he delivers his lines well and has the properly innocent features. But his voice cracks, a little like Jimmy Stewart's, as if he were pubescent, and his frame is diminutive.As usual, it's nice to see Richard Jaeckel in uniform again. Here -- grown a bit more husky with age -- he is top sergeant of Davison's detail. I do wish the poor guy could be promoted, maybe get a commission. He began as a mere Marine private in "Guadalcanal Diary" and had only made sergeant in the US Army by "The Dirty Dozen", a quarter of a century later. Now, five years after that, he's stuck in grade, but I understand he was finally retired as Warrant Officer and now lives in Coronado, California, where he spend his time cursing sea gulls and writing angry letters to the San Diego Union-Tribune about the deep need of Americans for more war in order to speed up promotions.This film isn't a masterpiece but the photography is nice, the action abundant, and the objectivity pronounced. If it isn't politically correct, at least it's not obvious propaganda like the Westerns of the 30s or "Stagecoach" or "Little Big Man." Polemics get tiresome and dated. This one opts for stimulating thought instead of binary emotions. As Lancaster's character puts it, "We'd be better off thinking' instead of hatin'." But the point is usually made with more subtlety.