All little boys like to play cowboys in their lives and director Blake Edwards gets a late start in The Wild Rovers his first and last (Sunset boasts Wyatt Earp but it's Hollywood in the Twenties) western. Having gained his reputation on comedies (The Pink Panther franchise) and some taut contemporary dramas (Days of Wine and Roses) he does little more than mimic Sam Peckinpaugh right down to employing dead ender cowpoke Bill Holden in the lead.
Ned Bodine (Holden) and Frank Post (Ryan O'Neal)work as ranch hands for cattleman Walter Buckman (Karl Malden). When a fellow cowboy is killed in a corral accident the boys take stock of their life and decide to retire by robbing the local bank by holding the bank president's family hostage. The robbery works without a hitch and the boys make a clean getaway leaving the posse in the dust. They decide to turn back but Buckman's two sons continue the pursuit. Back home a range war with sheepherders keeps the old man busy.
Edwards pacing plods when it should be galloping. His convoluted screenplay merely flies off in another direction, fraught with peripheral action that neither advances or energizes the plot. Characters are ambiguously developed and while Holden and O'Neal show decent chemistry they only serve to express generational points of view in one lack lustre scene after another. Tom Skerrit as one of Buckman's kids out trying to garner his father's approval turns out to be the picture's most interesting character.
Edward's regular cinematographer Phil Lathrop is along to lens and he does offer up some fine compositions and panoramas but Edward's use of slo-mo blood letting (the rage of the day) is both heavy handed and gratuitous and it glaringly reveals Edwards is out to copy rather than be original.
Ned Bodine (Holden) and Frank Post (Ryan O'Neal)work as ranch hands for cattleman Walter Buckman (Karl Malden). When a fellow cowboy is killed in a corral accident the boys take stock of their life and decide to retire by robbing the local bank by holding the bank president's family hostage. The robbery works without a hitch and the boys make a clean getaway leaving the posse in the dust. They decide to turn back but Buckman's two sons continue the pursuit. Back home a range war with sheepherders keeps the old man busy.
Edwards pacing plods when it should be galloping. His convoluted screenplay merely flies off in another direction, fraught with peripheral action that neither advances or energizes the plot. Characters are ambiguously developed and while Holden and O'Neal show decent chemistry they only serve to express generational points of view in one lack lustre scene after another. Tom Skerrit as one of Buckman's kids out trying to garner his father's approval turns out to be the picture's most interesting character.
Edward's regular cinematographer Phil Lathrop is along to lens and he does offer up some fine compositions and panoramas but Edward's use of slo-mo blood letting (the rage of the day) is both heavy handed and gratuitous and it glaringly reveals Edwards is out to copy rather than be original.