Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Jeff Bridges | ... | Jake Rumsey | |
Barry Brown | ... | Drew Dixon | |
Jim Davis | ... | Marshal | |
David Huddleston | ... | Big Joe | |
John Savage | ... | Loney | |
Jerry Houser | ... | Arthur Simms | |
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Damon Douglas | ... | Jim Bob Logan (as Damon Cofer) |
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Joshua Hill Lewis | ... | Boog Bookin |
Geoffrey Lewis | ... | Hobbs | |
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Raymond Guth | ... | Jackson |
Ed Lauter | ... | Orin (as Edward Lauter) | |
John Quade | ... | Nolan | |
Jean Allison | ... | Mrs. Dixon | |
Ned Wertimer | ... | Mr. Dixon | |
Charles Tyner | ... | Egg Farmer |
A group of naive boys find that life as desperadoes in the west is more serious that they understood when they embark on abortive careers in bushwhacking. Violence, betrayal, sombre colours and a Beckettsian whimsy mark this ironic western. Written by Keith Loh <loh@sfu.ca>
A young man dodging the draft in the Civil War falls in with bad company on his way west. A group of juveniles trying to be hardcases, they run into a variety of men trying to do the same and one or two actual tough nuts. On the way, our narrator (Barry Brown) learns more than the usual lessons about what it is to be a man, to be brave and to be a friend. Brown will make you wish his career had been longer. Jeff Bridges is his usual terrific self.
Robert Benton, one of America's real treasures as a writer and director, is the force behind this. You'll see that many of the themes he was interested in back then still echo in Nobody's Fool and Twilight.