Red River, 1948. A ruthless rancher heads a cattle drive. Directed by Howard Hawks & Arthur Rosson. Written by Borden Chase & Charles Schnee, based on a story by Chase. Starring John Wayne & Montgomery Clift.
Concept: 3/4 (Good). Mutiny on the Chisholm Trail. (Wayne even looks a little like a naval captain in that silly shirt.)
Story: 2/4 (Indifferent). 90% of it is very good. But, oh, that other 10%... yeesh.
Characters: 3/4 (Good)
Dialog: 2/4 (Indifferent). At times, it's absolutely brilliant. At other times, it's horrendously awful.
Pacing: 3/4 (Good)
Cinematography: 4/4 (Great).
Special effects/design: 3/4 (Good)
Acting: 3/4 (Good)
Music: 2/4 (Indifferent)
Subjective Rating: 7/10 (Good, 3/4). Pretty darn exciting. Even when it slows down, there's usually still a lot of interesting stuff going on. (For instance, I wonder if John Wayne realized that all of these cowboys either are or want to be having sex with each other.) There's a heap of big problems with it, though - very uneven writing.
Objective Rating (Average): 2.8/4 (Good)
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