1948 / 133m - USA
Western
1.0*/5.0*
Red River poster

Watches

May 29, 2021

1.0*/5.0*

A startlingly simple western stretched out to its limit, so much in fact that it passed the two-hour mark. Even after having watched the film I'm still not entirely sure how they actually managed to do it, though obviously the film did feel tepid and slow in places. Hawks really made a bad call there.

Tom and his adopted son Matthew are tasked to move a lot of cattle from Texas to Missouri. It's a treacherous journey regardless, the fact that the two of them are constantly bickering doesn't make it any easier. Matthew grows tired of Tom's tyrannical behavior and decides to take the cattle to a different destination.

Wayne is a really poor actor and the more dialogue there is, the less appealing his performance. While the setup could've worked for a simple, short genre flick, the excess dialogue and the prolonged scenes really screw with the pacing. The ending is pretty cringeworthy too, making this a pretty confusing western.