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The Missouri Breaks

  • Film
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Time Out says

A wonderfully quirky Western, brilliantly scripted by Thomas McGuane, which strips all the cute whimsy away from the Butch Cassidy theme (outlaws on the run from a relentless lawman), replacing it with a kind of pixillated terror. Playing the 'regulator' as a camp Buffalo Bill with an Irish accent, Brando makes his entrance playing peekaboo from behind his horse, and at one point even stalks his prey in a dress and poke bonnet. But he is also a legalised killer, expert with a rifle but preferring (as the flail of God) to use a harpoon shaped like a crucifix. And as his gloating sadism shades into hints of bizarre perversion when he dedicates a love song and a kiss to his horse, the tone gradually darkens to a kind of horror. It's one of the few truly major Westerns of the '70s, with a very clear vision of the historical role played by fear and violence in the taming of the wilderness.
Written by TM

Release Details

  • Duration:126 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Arthur Penn
  • Screenwriter:Thomas McGuane
  • Cast:
    • Marlon Brando
    • Jack Nicholson
    • Randy Quaid
    • Kathleen Lloyd
    • Frederic Forrest
    • Harry Dean Stanton
    • John McLiam
    • John P Ryan
    • Richard Bradford
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