User Reviews

This is one of the most perfect Westerns I have ever seen. All the situations are realistic. The actors are well-cast and nobody turns in a bad performance. Harvey Schmidt's piano score is the perfect complement to Gordon Willis' photography. Perennial bad-guy Geoffrey Lewis has one the funniest and most realistic dying words that have ever been put on screen. I can't find anything bad to say about this film. If you're a fan of Westerns,coming-of-age films,slice-of-life movies or buddy flicks this sleeper should not be missed. It has elements of all these different genres all wrapped up in one beautifully made movie.

Overlooked little gem from the counter-cultural era (1972). It's about as unromantic a view of the Old West as you're likely to find this side of a hog wallow. Nice Christian boy Bruce Brown flees the Civil War and a Union press-gang only to head west and fall in with a youthful gang of petty thieves. The story is really about his gradual corruption from innocent survivor to hardened stickup man. But more than a morality tale, the movie debunks about every glamorized cliché you've ever seen about life on the frontier.

Consider the following-- a homesteader escapes from frontier poverty prostituting his wife along the way; hungry kids get their heads splattered for stealing a pie; companions steal from strangers and even from each other ; and worst of all are the six-guns that don't even shoot straight. I expect there's more truth packed into these 90 minutes than in a ton of traditional Westerns. But who wants reality when myth is so much more comforting. Just look at these guys, scruffy, dirty, and dressed like they're wearing every garment they've ever owned-- even the Black Hole of Calcutta would consider them a health hazard. Then there's the pitiful hovels of the settlers that stick up like ugly warts on a sea of futility. It's really the visuals that tell the story and with scarcely an ounce of romanticism.

Jeff Bridges is terrific as Jake, the sort-of-charming but "he'd steal your shoes" gang leader. Ditto, David Huddleston as the philosophical prairie king-pin, and Jim Davis as the ice-cold marshal (I really did expect the camera to turn away from the hanging). Brown's okay, but I'm not sure how well his more complex role and concept is written. All in all, this so-called anti-Western is a logical reaction to decades of prior Hollywood myth-making, which may have been entertaining but was also profoundly misleading in its conventions. Nonetheless, Bad Company is also highly entertaining, and despite the obscurity, a major revisionist film from a rebellious time period.

A gang of little thieves meanders West to dodge the Civil War draft. On the way they lose their innocence, their dignity and most of their lives.

Stars Jeff Bridges as a rural Artful Dodger, Barry Brown his Oliver Twist, and David Huddleston as Fagin. Features harsh dialog, decently drawn characters, the always excellent Gordon Willis behind the camera, and a jackrabbit shot to death with large-caliber revolvers.

Like its early-70s revisionist brethren, BAD COMPANY immerses the viewer in an unglamorous Old West - there is some cursing, sudden brutality, and dirty clothing. Any of your companions could rob you, kill you or die any time. You will meet oddball characters on the trail. You will not take a bath for weeks. A jar of stolen peaches is your reward for a hard day's looking over both shoulders. That, or a load of buckshot in the back of the head.

Unlike better works of the genre and period, here there is no paean to friendship lost, no elegy to changing times, no growth from boy to man, no story even. It's just a slice of life. This can be fine, this no-journey journey thing, but in BAD COMPANY point A is so close to point B, you will not have time to gain any insights. You will not learn any lessons, except perhaps a fatalistic impulse to steer clear of other people. So ultimately this movie, though competent in every element, is little more than a bummer.

Too bad about Barry Brown - he shot himself in Silverlake before Silverlake, or he, was really fashionable. Too many movies like this and one gets a little depressed, I guess.

Spoilers.... Jeff Bridges is Jake, trying to stay one step ahead of being drafted into the army during the civil war. He ends up meeting guys with the same goal in missouri. There are ups and downs. Stealing food and money to survive. It's pretty much exactly what you think its going to be. Although they have to keep going into town for food and supplies -- not sure how they avoid being caught by the soldiers looking for evaders. Doesn't end well for many of them... it didn't pay to be a thief, a looter, or a draft dodger in those days. Yawn......Directed by Bob Benton. Has won THREE oscars! Also did Kramer versus Kramer.

Like many westerns released in the 1970s, "Bad Company" completely throws away the rule-book, director Robert Benton hitting us with a free-spirited flick that borrows less from the western genre than it does from road movies and the various coming of age tales, populated by young ruffians and rascals, of Charles Dickens and Mark Twain.

The film opens with young Drew Dixon (Barry Brown), an upstanding kid with a prestigious upbringing, leaving home. The Civil War is raging and he's on the run from Union gangs. They want to draft him into the army, he has other plans. And so with his family's blessings, Drew skips town, promising to "always keep to the straight and narrow". Unfortunately he soon hooks up with Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges) and his band of outcasts and delinquents. Turns out they're also dodging conscription.

Benton's film then develops along episodic lines, its tone ranging from the quirky, to the light-hearted, to the melancholic to the shockingly violent. Some of Benton's episodes involve the boys stealing, killing, skinning chickens or bartering with prostitutes, but for the most part each episode serves the same function: to show the eradication of the moral compass. Neither boys nor men, our heroes increasingly adopt manners that not only comport with their immature sense of masculinity, but push them further into corruption. Indeed, part of the fun of the film is our continual uncertainty as to exactly how far our cast has fallen.

Like most westerns released during this period (see "The Culpepper Cattle Company" and "Hombre"), "Bad Company" is attuned to the Vietnam war. The word "company" itself has militaristic connotations, and the film's awash with scenes involving draft dodging, kids being corrupted by violence, hardened by the wild, abandoned by society or derailed from paths of righteousness and civility.

Aesthetically the film looks gorgeous, filmed in naturalistic earth tones by Gordon Willis, the acclaimed cinematographer of "The Godfather". The score by Harvey Schmidt manages to be both jaunty and haunting. Young Jeff Bridges turns in an infectious performance.

8.5/10 – Makes a good companion piece to "Wild Bill", another underrated Jeff Bridges western. Worth one viewing.

"Bad Company" qualifies as a modest, offbeat, revisionist western. No, this unconventional oater about youth in revolt with Jeff Bridges and Barry Brown doesn't celebrate the golden opportunities that awaited settlers out west as the typical John Ford horse opera might herald. Instead, everybody complains about the lack of hospitality and the terrible ordeals that the pioneers weathered on the rugged frontier.

Our protagonists are a Union Army draft dodger from Ohio on the lam and an ill-bred ruffian who preys on the unsuspecting. "Bonnie and Clyde" scenarist Robert Benton teams up again with co-scribe David Newman, but Benton is calling the shots now rather than somebody else. Benton depicts crime on the prairie as neither glamorous nor simple. Moreover, he presents violence as impersonal, arbitrary, and without a shred of sentiment. For example, a young thief steals a pie cooling off on the window ledge of a farm house. As he scampers out with the pie, the back of the head erupts with a splash of blood as a bullet hurls him headlong into the dirt. Benton stages an impressive hanging scene without the usual ostentation. A small group gathers around the man to be hanged. They seat him on the horse, and a deputy leads the horse away without warning so that the criminal sways briefly with a kick or two. Everything about the hanging takes place in such a matter-of-fact way that the punishment itself lacks any impact. Altogether, "Bad Company" deals in irony, and our two anti-heroic leads dabble with little success in crime until the last scene when they emerge as bank robbers. In a sense, the end is the beginning for them as criminals. Most of the action occurs in the wilderness, and the wilderness here is drab, overgrown with foliage, and never scenic. Mountains don't crouch ominously on the horizons. Despite the lackluster setting, Benton's low-budget oater is blessed by the cinematography of "Godfather" lenser Gordon Willis. Willis imparts a sense of muted beauty to this Spartan tale. "Bad Company" isn't a traditional western and only one important character sports a Stetson. Nobody looks like the usual cowboy, though the sets have a western flavor.

As "Bad Company" unfolds, the Union Army is rounding up young men who have tried to avoid enlisting in the military. An Ohio youth, Drew Dixon (Barry Brown of "Halls of Anger") evades the Union troopers when they search his house and then his parents pack his belongs, give him some dough, and send him on to Fort Jefferson where he plans to catch a wagon train west to Virginia City. When he arrives in Fort Jefferson, Drew falls in with the unprepossessing likes of roguish Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges of "Rancho Deluxe") who leads him down a side alley and clubs him. Drew has a wad of cash stashed in his shoe, but Jake walks off with less than ten dollars. Later, Drew looks for a Methodist woman. Jakes' cohorts rob her, but he returns her purse and breaks into her house without realizing that Drew is waiting for her return. Drew and Jake tangle in a knock-down, drag-out brawl and Jake is so impressed with Drew's tenacity that he takes a liking to him. The Methodist woman returns to her home and screams at the sight of destruction, prompting Jake and Drew to exit before they are caught on the premises. Whereas Jake is a cheerful thief, Drew tries to stick to the straight and narrow. For example, Jake and his gang coerce Drew into proving his mettle by robbing a storekeeper. Drew takes money from his shoe and smashes up his fist to prove that he dealt with resistance from the storekeeper. Jake and company take him in as one of their own. They are all teenagers and they dress like the children of settlers. Nobody wears traditional western gear.

The theme of the West as a land of woes rather than promise is played out in two important scenes. Benton has an amusing incident happen when the boys encounter a farmer with his wife on a wagon in the middle of the prairie. The farmer warns them the nothing good can come of the west. They tried to till the land, but Mother Nature threw one obstacle after another in their way. Finally, the farmer, Zeb (Ted Gehring of "The Thomas Crown Affair") strikes a bargain with the boys that they can have intercourse with his wife, Min (Monika Henreid of "The Omega Man"), for eight dollars. Of course, Jake is the first one to mount her and he finishes up in lightning fast time. Zeb comments about Jake's celerity, and Jake is proud that he came so rapidly, not realizing the onus attached to swift sex. Later, our heroes are caught off-guard by an older gang of outlaws led by Big Joe (David Huddleston of "McQ") who laments the day that he went west. Big Joe and his minions rob the boys, but they leave them their horses. Inevitably, Jake's gang begins to fragment, especially after the encounter with Big Joe and his outlaws. They dine with a farmer who keeps them covered with a shotgun. At one point, they steal chickens from another farm and one of them dies stealing a pie. Before long, Jake and Drew are set afoot when their friends betray them. Jake and Drew turn on each other and Drew joins a posse led by a marshal (Jim Davis of "The Honkers") and he catches up with Jake, but he cannot stand to see Jake swing.

"Bad Company" is an above-average movie, probably more sophisticated than it needed to be. Newman and Benton has written an interesting tale of initiation, but the stakes here are pretty low and the filmmakers are more prone to poking fun—subtle fun—at the genre than delivering slam-bang shoot-outs, hard-riding chases, and bar room brawls.

To coin a new term, "Bad Company" is a "Western Noir". It is ultra-realistic: no good guys in white hats, no Tin Pan Alley scores, no happy ending.The story line probably reflects the true Old West better than the roseate "singing cowboy" fare of the 1930's-1940's.

The underlying theme of the film is the quirky friendship that springs up between two antipodal young men: Drew Dixon (played by the late Barry Brown) and Jake Rumsey (played by Jeff Bridges).

The film opens in a small Ohio town, where a group of grim-faced Yankee soldiers are dragooning reluctant young men into the Union Army during the Civil War.

Dixon, a pious, idealistic naif, escapes from the compulsory conscription and meets up with a rougher youth, Jake Rumsey,who,feigning friendship for Dixon, lures him into an alley, saps him, and steals his money.

At a church lady's home (where he has sought aid), Dixon recognizes Rumsey who has entered the home, burgling and stuffing his mouth with stolen food.

Though frailer than Rumsey, Dixon wildly attacks him with the savagery of a cornered wolverine; the ensuing damage he causes, though, necessitates Dixon's fleeing with Rumsey and joining up with his gang. Rumsey's gang (a ragtag collection of scruffy runaways) survive by strong-arming women and children, and Drew Dixon (despite his virtuousness) is not above lying to ingratiate himself with the gang. Excepting the well-bred Drew, none of the boys has any redeeming qualities, exemplified by much vulgar and profane language, some racial slurs, the torture of a cat, and the actual killing and skinning of a rabbit.

On the strength of Dixon's desire to become a silver miner in Virginia City, Nevada, the group heads west across a vast, desolate prairie, and engage in unedifying behavior: they rob, steal, curse, avail themselves of a prostitute (excepting Drew, who declares, testily, that "he's saving himself for marriage.")

However, the predators fall prey to gunslingers older and more vicious than they, and the group begins to fall apart, through defections, and a harrowing scene where the youngest (about 10 years old) is shot dead by a sod buster for stealing a pie.

Ultimately, the group is reduced to two (Jake and Drew) who have a repeat encounter with their former attackers, but this time, the tables are turned, and the two young men annihilate the older men in a particularly sanguinary spree.

But, a remarkable transformation has taken place: the erstwhile straight-laced, sanctimonious Drew Dixon has done a large share of the killing; he has now tasted blood - and enjoyed it.

After further misadventures, the transformation is complete: Drew Dixon is a cold-eyed, cynical outlaw; an individual not so dissimilar from the admittedly criminal Jake Rumsey.

Despite the overlying pessimistic tone of the film, "Bad Company" is a cinematic tour de force. The interior scenes (suggestive of the sets of Victorian melodramas), the vast panorama of fields stretching endlessly across the horizon, the mindless yet expedient brutality of the less-than-hospitable denizens of the Old West combine perfectly to form a picture, which, while not pretty, is nevertheless more vivid, and doubtlessly much truer than those accounts which are pallid, romanticized, and limned in pastel colors.

Barry Brown (in his first starring role) gave an excellent performance; disciplined, professional, yet full of the underlying passionate emotion (particularly, during the fight scene) which characterized all of his acting. (Brown, who was once described by a producer as "the only American actor you can believe ever read a book" was an extremely handsome, intellectually brilliant, yet deeply troubled young man; sadly underrated as a serious actor, he died tragically at the age of 27.)

Jeff Bridges (as Jake Rumsey) painted a convincing portrait of a genial, oafish, amoral individual. Although Rumsey pined for his mother back in Pennsylvania (some criminals are sentimental about their mothers), he nevertheless chose the lazy expedient of criminality, over the honest endeavor of hard work.

In this film, good did not triumph over evil, and finally, Drew Dixon became ethically just like his counterpart, Jake Rumsey - the same side of a trick coin.

For the viewer who wants to see a hard, gritty, no-punches-pulled Western, "Bad Company" is the movie to see; for those who like "sweetness-and-light" Western fare - I suggest reruns of "Gunsmoke" instead.