While watching this film I was reminded of a 1970's clunker titled "Cry Blood, Apache", a movie Western that still holds sway with me as one of the worst I've seen. But the thing I liked about that picture that's done here as well is the inventive way the title character goes about dispatching the outlaws that killed his mother in the opening set up. I particularly liked the flying rattlesnake routine, but if you analyze these things the way I do, the mechanics of that 'kill' is a bit of a stretch, because that rattler would have had to strike it's victim on initial impact, and that doesn't seem likely. But the idea was pretty cool. 'Cry Blood' was even cooler, the bad guy got a bag over his head with the snake inside - think about it.
The second outlaw to be done in by Joshua (Fred Williamson) presented a bit of a puzzling situation. It occurred right in the bad guys' camp, but it wasn't made clear how Joshua got near enough to spear his victim at such close quarters. And because he did, I had to wonder why he didn't take out the rest of the gang at the same time, they were all asleep as well. But then the picture would have been over in about thirty minutes.
There are other anomalies as well. The real head scratcher for me was how the kidnapped and repeatedly raped woman portrayed by Brenda Venus went so far overboard in her Stockholm Syndrome transformation with gang leader Jed (Calvin Bartlett). By the time the remaining three outlaws reached the desert saloon, she was a regular party animal with the rest of them. That just didn't make sense to me. Also, if you think about it (here I go again), wouldn't that have been the longest rendition of 'Oh, Susannah' ever played, seeing as how the pursuing Joshua got involved in a couple more scrapes before he made his appearance there.
As for the over all musical theme, I have to go against the naysayers. I thought the pulsing, rhythmic beat perfectly complemented Joshua's mission to bring the baddies to justice. It was relentless and a driving force propelling the story forward. If I had to find a main fault with the picture, it would be the inordinate amount of time spent riding and tracking the outlaws. If you patched it all together there would be at least twenty minutes of useless filler that didn't need to stretch this thing out to an hour and a half. As for Williamson himself, he could have used more charisma a la The Stranger or The Man With No Name. You knew he was going to get the job done, but he could have offered a few brilliant one-liners along the way.
The second outlaw to be done in by Joshua (Fred Williamson) presented a bit of a puzzling situation. It occurred right in the bad guys' camp, but it wasn't made clear how Joshua got near enough to spear his victim at such close quarters. And because he did, I had to wonder why he didn't take out the rest of the gang at the same time, they were all asleep as well. But then the picture would have been over in about thirty minutes.
There are other anomalies as well. The real head scratcher for me was how the kidnapped and repeatedly raped woman portrayed by Brenda Venus went so far overboard in her Stockholm Syndrome transformation with gang leader Jed (Calvin Bartlett). By the time the remaining three outlaws reached the desert saloon, she was a regular party animal with the rest of them. That just didn't make sense to me. Also, if you think about it (here I go again), wouldn't that have been the longest rendition of 'Oh, Susannah' ever played, seeing as how the pursuing Joshua got involved in a couple more scrapes before he made his appearance there.
As for the over all musical theme, I have to go against the naysayers. I thought the pulsing, rhythmic beat perfectly complemented Joshua's mission to bring the baddies to justice. It was relentless and a driving force propelling the story forward. If I had to find a main fault with the picture, it would be the inordinate amount of time spent riding and tracking the outlaws. If you patched it all together there would be at least twenty minutes of useless filler that didn't need to stretch this thing out to an hour and a half. As for Williamson himself, he could have used more charisma a la The Stranger or The Man With No Name. You knew he was going to get the job done, but he could have offered a few brilliant one-liners along the way.