The Good Guys and the Bad Guys

Burt Kennedy's characteristically affectionate Western comedy sees ageing sheriff Mitchum join forces with his old bandit enemy George Kennedy to outwit Carradine and his gang of younger, rather less honorable robbers, and in so doing, cock a snook at Balsam, the opportunist and self-inflated mayor who has demanded Mitchum's retirement. In noting the passing of the Old West, and upholding honour and age over expediency and youth, Kennedy comes closer to the Peckinpah of Ride the High Country than of The Wild Bunch; even so, the humour here is broad and cheery rather than elegiac and violent. The performances are delightful throughout, and Kennedy, quite rightly, gives them free rein.