Junior Bonner
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Movie Reviews of Junior Bonner
Movie Review: One of the best rodeo movies ever !!!
Summary: 5 Stars
McQueen, Lupino, Preston, Ben Johnson, with Peckinpah and writer Rosebrook. No better grouping of talent anywhere.
This is a snapshot in time of rodeo.
Prescott, an old western town changing but trying not to.
Family.
Rodeo champions, what do they do and where do they go after the physical abilities are shot?
Rodeo has no big contracts or retirement plans, when it's over, it's over.
One of the best rodeo movies ever.
Others? Eight Seconds, J.W. Coop, The Lusty Men, The Misfits.
Movie Review: Stunning!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a superb movie with excellent performances. I lived in Pendleton, Oregon, the home of the famous Pendleton Roundup, for nine years, and I think that this is the best rodeo movie ever made. The actors all give true to life performances, and it seems so real that one can smell the dust of the arena. There is no sparkling, brittle dialogue, because rodeo men don't talk that way; but a great deal is said in a few words.Movie Review: Junior Bonner
Summary: 5 Stars
Sam Peckinpah's most subtle, gentle movie is a perfect showcase for the mellowing McQueen, who wears the part of Junior like a pair of old jeans. "Junior" also boasts a fabulous late career turn from Preston, who steals the movie as Ace. Appropriate for older children, who should enjoy the bucking bronco scenes. Terrific Americana, not to be missed.Movie Review: The reason this was underappreciated
Summary: 4 Stars
JUNIOR BONNER takes a more worldly spin to the land of the rodeo and its slow decline. Granted it's not as graphic as some of Peckinpah's earlier undertakings, and not quite as intense personal drama either. But the story of J.R. Bonner, an aging cowboy and rodeo star, who has to confront the changing times, has a lot of major societal issues weaving through its pages.
You have to understand the times. In the early 1970s the American West was still quite open and quiet, but the old ways were slowly fading off and the new consumer culture was coming in. Compared to today's dog-eat-dog economy, the late 1940s through early '70s were a socialist paradise. Jobs paid well, housing was affordable, and the executives didn't run off with seven- or eight-figure salaries. But the system became a victim of its own success as the middle class got wealthier and began to move around and buy bigger (and second) homes. Greed slipped back in, in real estate but also in the general public ideology.
JR, visiting in Prescott, Arizona for the 4th of July, is looking for his dad Ace, and sees a huge excavation pit and housing subdivision going up. Ace seems all too willing to go along with brother Curly, who is profiting from a mobile home development named after him. The Bonner family plans to move into a subdivision and work for the company. They don't realize how unfair the land deal was and how stifling the new way of life may be for them. Especially JR, who wants none of it. The conflict between JR and Curly over the future of the world they live in becomes important.
One can look at this theme two ways: Perhaps JR sees the new residents as foreigners who threaten the traditional cowboy way of life. Many are from the east and are used to things like golf courses, shopping malls and tract housing. Or maybe the real problem is the capitalist greed of Curly Bonner and his development agenda. None of it seems like authentic country life but a silly commercialized mockery of it.
JR doesn't seem like a raging idealist out to save the world, though. He just wants his freedom to live and do what he loves with animals in the rodeo. He isn't the perfect gentleman but not a mega-chauvinist either. The arena and the bullfights are his symbol of identity and the fight he is leading in his heart to resist what is happening to his family. Ace wants to search for gold in Australia, which everyone else thinks is silly.
There could have been more development in the conflict between the two brothers, something to bring it to a dramatic climax. And maybe the rodeo events should have been spaced out a little more over time to get a feeling for life on the road. But then, there's only so much time and space in one movie...
Definitely close to the heart of the anti-sprawl crowd, the history crowd, the social vision crowd, not to mention the rodeo crowd. So why wasn't it a big success? American audiences seem to prefer thrills over social conscience, and this movie takes a deeper conscience to truly enjoy. It was ahead of the times as well, anticipating a trend that has gone so much further in the 34 years since this film was written. Perhaps that is why it is enjoying a second fame today.
Movie Review: Tell 'Em Sam Sent You
Summary: 4 Stars
I love early to mid-1970s films, before "Star Wars" (a great movie) came along and changed everything and turned most movies into slick, predictable product. Now, every other movie is a sequel or a retread of a comic book or crappy TV show. Sam Peckinpah didn't play that. His films are incredibly entertaining, challenging, and original, and Junior Bonner is one of the finest examples. He made it right after he made one of his ugliest (and most brilliant) movies, Straw Dogs, so of course the media and the public ignored it because Junior Bonner is relatively quiet, gentle, and profoundly moving. You want to know what happened to character development in films? Check this out. Peckinpah can tell you someone's life story in just a few images. Steve McQueen, superstar, stud, and damned good actor who knows the value of understatement. His performance as Junior is superb and consistently convincing, as are those of Robert Preston and Ida Lupino, who have some lovely, funny, touching scenes together. Not as good as an actress, but so beautiful and sexy you might have trouble breathing, is Barbara Leigh as Junior's lust interest, whom he leaves behind at the end because it's "rodeo time." Joe Don Baker is not likable as a character, but his acting is also first-rate and he's one of the few actors who got the chance to deck McQueen, even though it's a bigger scene when Steve punches him through a window. Then's there's the photography of the sublime Lucien Ballard, who shot The Wild Bunch and other Peckinpah classics. Peckinpah shoots rodeo action with wit and imagination, capturing minor details that add up to a rich, textured presentation of an important part of American folk culture. My favorite scenes are: the meeting between Junior and his mom; the parade in Prescott, Arizona; the conversation between Junior and his dad Ace at the train station, especially when Ace knocks off Junior's cowboy hat; and the final scence between Ace and Junior's mom. All in all, it's the kind of movie that, to use a cliche, they just don't make anymore, and therefore, thank goodness for DVD.