Man with the Gun

A striking, compact first feature from esteemed screenwriter Wilson. Mitchum is the taciturn 'town-tamer', whose extreme methods of law enforcement are available for hire when local marshals have run out of options. Arriving in a frontier community to look up old-flame Sterling, he finds himself engaged in lethally dismantling the influence of the area's Mr Big. His ruthless efficiency has the townsfolk appalled, but Mitchum, scarred by childhood memories which saw his unarmed father gunned down, channels his inner demons into the task at hand. It's among his finest performances, but by no means a one-man show, given Wilson's deft placement of wry humour amid the carnage, and North's fine score expressing the sense of an open-air America ill at ease with itself. Forget the unofficial Michael Winner remake Lawman.