A late Wayne Western, depending heavily on recycling better (and no better) earlier pictures. Strung together in a one-suspect kidnapping yarn are the family feuds and father/son reconciliations first encountered in
Shepherd of the Hills, with
Hondo,
The Searchers and
McLintock plundered along the way. But this is 1971, the year of
Dirty Harry, so a new brutality attaches awkwardly to the familiar goings on; and where the humour in
The Searchers served to mark that film's epic passages of time, Big Jake's knockabout with motorbikes and mud fights merely, and tiresomely, prolongs the pursuit.
