MovieChat Forums > The Missouri Breaks (1976) Discussion > How this movie doesn't garner more posit...

How this movie doesn't garner more positive feedback is beyond me!

posted 18 years ago by Charles_Bronsons_Stache
8 replies | jump to latest

INSANE. This film has got the whole shebang, and it's just not that, it domniates in every territory: From a magnificent script, beautiful cinematography, absorbing soundtrack, mesmerizing leads + excellent other cast to direction.

I've tried, but I still fail to see how anyone could NOT like this film! To me, it's one of the greatest westerns ever played out, right up there with the best.

And no, I love Brando's performance, one of his most memorable. 'Lips of salome, eyes of cleopatra' ! I love the fact that his voice changes in different scenes, just like his clothes do; he's already playing a weird guy, so why wouldn't this be a possiblity?

As for Jack, I happen to think it's one of the best roles he's ever played. So energetic, yet harmonic. And he and Brando have great chemistry ( as the bathtub scene surely must have proven).

So please tell me, how can you not like this movie?

[–] eliostar1 18 years ago

In all honesty, when the calender hit 1970 they should have outlawed the making of any more westerns. The modern directors just didn't understand the genre, IMO.

[–] joekiddlouischama 17 years ago

In all honesty, when the calender hit 1970 they should have outlawed the making of any more westerns. The modern directors just didn't understand the genre, IMO.

Robert Altman? Clint Eastwood? Certainly, the decade of the seventies featured its share of notable Westerns.

[–] 17 years ago

[deleted]

[–] joekiddlouischama 17 years ago

INSANE. This film has got the whole shebang, and it's just not that, it domniates in every territory: From a magnificent script, beautiful cinematography, absorbing soundtrack, mesmerizing leads + excellent other cast to direction.

I've tried, but I still fail to see how anyone could NOT like this film! To me, it's one of the greatest westerns ever played out, right up there with the best.

And no, I love Brando's performance, one of his most memorable. 'Lips of salome, eyes of cleopatra' ! I love the fact that his voice changes in different scenes, just like his clothes do; he's already playing a weird guy, so why wouldn't this be a possiblity?

As for Jack, I happen to think it's one of the best roles he's ever played. So energetic, yet harmonic. And he and Brando have great chemistry ( as the bathtub scene surely must have proven).

So please tell me, how can you not like this movie?

You can read my mixed experience with The Missouri Breaks here:

The Missouri Breaks was supposed to be a classic because it was directed by Arthur Penn (The Left Handed Gun, Bonnie and Clyde, Little Big Man) and starred Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson. However, it certainly didn't achieve classic status and instead went down as something of a dud.

Personally, I've viewed the film twice, coming away with different reactions each time. The first was in early May 2002. I was 21-and-a-half and about to graduate from college, and at that point, I thought that The Missouri Breaks was a creepily electrifying psychological-thriller Western, with Brando and Nicholson tracking each other and dueling it out in the remote bad lands. The film carried a carnal charge, and it was the kind of movie where afterwards, I was sort of creeping around my small studio apartment, with everything seeming a little more vivid than usual. Certainly, my opinion of the film was high and I felt dynamically entertained.

I next watched the film in late May 2007, and my response that time proved quite different. The Missouri Breaks was still striking in its carnality and its sense of how the Western environment created a feelng of phobia and danger. It showcased the remoteness of the wilderness and showed how a layered landscape could create a haunting spatial-temporal dynamic for those caught in its throes, the hunter and the hunted.

Yet what had electrified me as a 21-year old young person on the verge of graduating from college five years earlier now dissatisfied me. The tracking duel that I'd first witnessed long ago now appeared too predictable (and not just because I'd seen the movie before) and tacky, too reliant on lame trickery. The gothic spookiness was still there, but now it seemed forced and cheap rather than naturalistic and organic, fizzling rather than thrilling, more tepidly curious than startling. The self-indulgence of Brando's performance appeared more annoying and absurd than compulsive (although it's still eccentric enough), and the script seemed to run out of ideas and fall into a formula of grotesque gimmickry.

So in summation, I'd say that The Missouri Breaks stands as a curio, worth watching for its bizarreness and the decadence and remoteness that it captures (along with the directorial and acting talent on hand), but also worthy of multiple screenings to see if its surface and ostentatious elements hold up over time. With this Western, I don't think that they do.

http://www.imdb.com/board/bd0000007/thread/95936218?d=95942675#9594267 5

[–] TheAnimalMother 15 years ago

I can't answer your last question, because I agree with you. Some people don't get Brando, and some people do. And this character is a prime example. I personally think he is brilliant in it, even if some others find it a terrible performance. To me, this kind of Brando performance was inspiriation to actors like Bill Murray and Robet Downey jr. I think the influence is fairly obvious in some of their roles. And they are all brilliant in their own way. I too think this is up there among the best westerns I have seen. Jack is great as usual, and so is Brando. At least, in my view. I have a lot of love for this film, the pace, the flow, the characters, it's great.

My body's a cage, it's been used and abused...and I...LIKE IT!!

[–] Dorf_Dorkman 15 years ago

I agree. Just watched this for the first time yesterday. Beautiful cinematography, great score. All of the actors were good, and Jack and Marlon were superb. Brando's character here is unique, never have seen a character quite like this guy - very interesting and fun to watch. Excellent movie all around, one of the most underrated of all time.

[–] tolbs1010 14 years ago

Just finished viewing The Missouri Breaks for the first time and I agree with nearly all of the praise for this film with one notable exception. The music. The kind of music that informs you that you're watching a comedy. McGuane's script is funny enough without wanky harmonicas and banjos reminding you that things aren't to be taken too seriously.

Great movie overall though. One of Penn's best and one of Brando's best.

[–] dalldorfw 14 years ago

I think it's because everyone talks like Larry The Cable Guy with his mouth full (come to think of it, the characters often did talk with their mouths full). I know there's a great movie here somewhere, but I could only understand about every other sentience.

The fact that they cranked up the sound effects and music while the actors mumbled their dialog didn't help either.