Crwthod
A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.
Invaderbank
The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.
Raymond Sierra
The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
NORDIC-2
Robert Benton's and David Newman's third screen writing collaboration—after 'Bonnie & Clyde' (1967) and 'There was a Crooked Man' (1970)—'Bad Company', though flawed, is still one of the better revisionist westerns of the Seventies. Helmed by Benton (his first directorial effort) and shot by Gordon Willis ('Klute'; 'The Godfather') in and around Emporia, Severy, and Neosho Rapids, Kansas, 'Bad Company' is a western, a road movie, a buddy film, and a coming-of-age story all rolled into one. According to press materials, the impetus for the story came out of Benton's recollections of his father and uncles in Waxahachie, Texas. Although his uncles exhibited "an enormous kind of chemistry for the illegal," his basically upstanding father worshiped his brothers nonetheless. Hence the movie's theme: "When you love someone you ultimately cross lines for them you never expected to cross in your life." After a son is killed at the Battle of Chickamauga (September 1863), a Greenville, Ohio couple hide their other son, Drew Dixon (Barry Brown) from union troops searching for draft evaders, give him $100 and his late brother's gold watch, and send him on his way toward the sparsely settled western territories where, presumably, he will be safe from the draft. Dixon's travels to St. Joseph, Missouri—the western edge of the Union and the eastern terminus of (the by then defunct) Pony Express—where he hopes to join a wagon train or board a stagecoach for Virginia City, Nevada (1,500 miles further west) and make his fortune as a silver prospector at the Comstock Lode. Stranded in St. Joseph, which is swarming with union soldiers, Dixon is accosted and robbed by Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges), another draft dodger who heads a small gang of young desperadoes. Though Drew Dixon is a naive young man from a pious, respectable background, he soon falls in with Jake Rumsey (i.e., "bad company") much in the same way that Oliver Twist fell in with Fagin and his pickpockets. Jake, Drew, and four other youths ride west through desolate country. Along the way a grizzled farmer heading back East sells his wife's sexual favors to the boys for eight dollars; the boys buy food from a farmer who holds a shotgun on them as they eat; they are robbed by a gang of outlaws; one boy is shot dead trying to steal a pie; another hops a stagecoach the band was trying to hold up; a pair of brothers (one of whom is played by a very young John Savage) hold Jake and Drew at gunpoint and take their horses but are later found hanging from a tree. The gang that previously robbed them attack Jake and Drew but this time they stand their ground and kill their assailants. Discovering that Drew faked a robbery to get into his gang, Jake knocks Drew unconscious, robs him, and leaves him to fend for himself in the wilderness. And on and on it goes. What started as a youthful adventure turns into an endless nightmare of paranoia, violence, predation, and betrayal in the savage Darwinian universe that was the Old West. In the end, the nominally pious Drew has transformed himself into an honest outlaw indistinguishable from Jake Rumsey. Though not big at the box office, the film earned good notices and inspired a hit song "Bad Company," by a hugely successful English rock group of the same name. A sad postscript: the movie's promising co-star, Barry Brown, struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction before committing suicide on June 25, 1978 at the age of 27. VHS (1998) and DVD (2002).
Bruce Banner
I'm a huge fan of Jeff Bridges. Great all around actor who is a pleasure to watch and the Big Lebowski is an all time favorite of mine.But the movie is still just not worth it. Its just a rambling, meandering story with little story spine and a lack of any true drama. If you are on the edge of your seat it will probably be from dozing rather than from any gripping sort of suspense or interest. I believe it was given kudos by some critics for being a different type of western: more gritty, real, less glamorized and all that. Honestly, just because a film does something different, doesn't mean it was good entertainment and that's the most important criteria for a good movie.So, if you want to then watch it but you can definitely do better.
bkoganbing
In this American homage to Oliver Twist, young Oliver is Barry Brown a god fearing church going youth from Ohio who would like very much to be not taken by Mr. Lincoln's draft in the Civil War. He runs away from Ohio to head out of the Union to the western territories, but of course runs into some Bad Company.The Bad Company is Jeff Bridges from Pennsylvania an incorrigible Artful Dodger type and he's got himself as good a ragamuffin gang that ever cut a purse in London around the same time. A lot of what went west could be described today as white trash and this crowd definitely fits the bill. They do what they can to survive in and around the Missouri border area, but they also want to head west, just haven't the means. A gang who's only lacking a Fagin.Bad Company as a film works because of the good chemistry between Bridges and Brown. As the two get to know each other, strengths and weaknesses both, they form a bond that enables them to survive the frontier. Of course its Brown who winds up doing things his Methodist upbringing told him were unthinkable.Such great character actors as John Quade, David Huddleston, Ed Lauter, and Jim Davis are all in Bad Company. As this came out during the Vietnam War the film did get a sympathetic audience from younger viewers and not just because of its young stars.Bad Company is a fun western for its time, still quite enjoyable today.
rhinocerosfive-1
A gang of little thieves meanders West to dodge the Civil War draft. On the way they lose their innocence, their dignity and most of their lives.Stars Jeff Bridges as a rural Artful Dodger, Barry Brown his Oliver Twist, and David Huddleston as Fagin. Features harsh dialog, decently drawn characters, the always excellent Gordon Willis behind the camera, and a jackrabbit shot to death with large-caliber revolvers.Like its early-70s revisionist brethren, BAD COMPANY immerses the viewer in an unglamorous Old West - there is some cursing, sudden brutality, and dirty clothing. Any of your companions could rob you, kill you or die any time. You will meet oddball characters on the trail. You will not take a bath for weeks. A jar of stolen peaches is your reward for a hard day's looking over both shoulders. That, or a load of buckshot in the back of the head. Unlike better works of the genre and period, here there is no paean to friendship lost, no elegy to changing times, no growth from boy to man, no story even. It's just a slice of life. This can be fine, this no-journey journey thing, but in BAD COMPANY point A is so close to point B, you will not have time to gain any insights. You will not learn any lessons, except perhaps a fatalistic impulse to steer clear of other people. So ultimately this movie, though competent in every element, is little more than a bummer.Too bad about Barry Brown - he shot himself in Silverlake before Silverlake, or he, was really fashionable. Too many movies like this and one gets a little depressed, I guess.
