FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Steineded How sad is this?

Nicole I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Ian (Flash Review)John Wayne plays a cowboy named McCandles, great name, in this Western that highlights the trend away from horses to cars and motorcycle. It opens in 1909 with eight bandits who approach vast ranch estate and murder many workers and kidnap the mother's grandson for a random of $1mil. Not just any grandson, a grandson of McCandles who has been away from the family for many years. The mother calls back McCandles to handle the job of rescuing the grandson and make sure the ransom makes it to its destination safely. Will anyone doubt McCandles at accomplishing his task and will he have any tricks up his sleeve? This was a solid story as a basis some good shootouts, snappy dialog and splendid natural cinematography. Pure John Wayne.

classicsoncall As I sit here thinking about the movie, the question that keeps popping up is 'who was Little Jake's father?'. At the shootout to end the story, he calls James (Patrick Wayne) 'Uncle Jim', and Michael (Christopher Mitchum) was obviously too young. Process of elimination would make the wounded McCandles brother Jeff (Bobby Vinton) his Dad, but that was never firmly established, and I don't recall Jeff ever reacting to the kidnapping like Jake was his own son. So what gives? If anyone can answer, we can start in on who was Little Jake's mother.I liked the way the story mixed in elements of humor to move the story forward. The buckshot butt scene was comical, and hearing John Wayne sing in Spanish in the shower was a bit offbeat for the film star. I don't think I've ever seen Wayne sing in a picture, so that was an interesting touch. Dog's (Dog?) role was a welcome addition to the story too, but it was a little distracting whenever his coloration seemed to change from time to time. Still, a dog that loyal comes highly recommended.I'm on record in some of my other reviews for preferring the old Paladin himself, Richard Boone as a Western villain. He seems more colorful as an outlaw and certainly has the craggy features to pull off the bad guy role. His 'thought you were dead' line to Big Jake at the finale was priceless; the film needed that closure to fulfill one of Big Jake's promises earlier in the story.All in all a decent John Wayne Western, establishing his character right up there with the likes of J.D. Cahill and Rooster Cogburn. Now if we can get the Little Jake mystery cleared up we'd be all set.

Bill Slocum To get this out of the way up front: I love John Wayne. Seeing him in a film as bad as this isn't just disappointing, it feels wrong.Jacob McCandles (Wayne) is a famous gunslinger whose estranged wife Martha calls upon him to return to his old ranch after desperadoes kidnap the grandson Jake didn't know he had. To get the boy back, Martha is told she must have a million dollars brought to the kidnappers in Mexico. Jake takes on the task of the boy's recovery.The film opens with carnage at the McCandles ranch, not at all realistic but certainly meant that way. There are a lot of blood splotches and random killing, of women and children as well as men. The bad guys in this movie may be likened to the James Gang, but they operate more like the Manson Family. No doubt this was an effort to reach numb and jaded audiences circa 1971.This proves a serious miscalculation as the film goes on and tries to develop a lighter, comic touch around the Big Jake character. He's established as an ornery cuss who punches out one of his own sons for calling him "Daddy," then punches him out again for cracking wise about his leaving Martha. (How these McCandleses eat solid food is a mystery.)Every once in a while, Jake's dander is riled when someone tells him: "I thought you were dead.""Next man says that to me I'm gonna shoot, so help me," Jake fumes.The tone issues are the worst of it for me, clumsily handled by credited director George Sherman with an uncredited assist from Wayne. But nearly as bad is the dodgy plot. Simply put, there is no way Big Jake could expect his plans for recovering the boy to work in a world anywhere other than Hollywood. He relies on two bad eyes, an Apache also with bad eyes, a dog, and two unproven boys to take on a gang of criminals who just wasted a bunch of ranchhands and three carloads of Arizona Rangers.Oddities abound. Bruce Cabot plays Jake's Apache friend with a lot of Man Tan on his face and an attempt at Tonto-speak he discards within a few minutes. Bobby Vinton plays one of Jake's sons with an anachronistic perm and gold necklace whose sole purpose is getting shot. Other sons are played by Patrick Wayne, Wayne's real-life son and a terrible actor, and Christopher Mitchum, even worse here with his shimmering blond Beatles haircut and his left-field Evel Knievel motorcycle stunts.The motorcycle is probably anachronistic, too, although the point is made right away that we are in 1909, where lawmen ride cars, not horses, and pistols can be fed ammunition automatically. Of course, the real time change behind "Big Jake" is the 1970s, and Wayne adjusting to a new decade and a different culture. In other 1970s films, Wayne's characters handle this with grace and self-aware humor. Here Big Jake grumbles a lot and punches people.There's a confrontation scene in a Mexican town between Big Jake's group and a secondary bandit gang that, while illogical and overly convenient in its execution, is almost exciting. The final battle is a mess, though. I won't get into spoilers, but when five men with pistols and rifles surround an injured old man and a boy behind a hayrick, you need more than a lot of cutaways and back-and-forth dialogue to explain how the latter can possibly survive, let alone prevail.Watching a great actor play down to his stereotype persona is frustrating. When he's as inanimate as Wayne so often is here, it's worse. "Big Jake" seems to operate under the notion that if it features Wayne, and serves up as many reminders as it does of better Wayne movies, it will be enough. It's not, and when combined with its ugly, disjointed tone and general strangeness, "Big Jake" makes for a singularly deflating experience.

mark.waltz When the grandson of beautiful Maureen O'Hara and her estranged husband John Wayne is kidnapped, Wayne re-appears after being believed by many people other than his wife to be dead. He joins his sons (Bobby Vinton, Patrick Wayne, Christopher Mitchum) to find the nasty gang (lead by Richard Boone) who are holding him hostage out of vengeance. Wayne and sons fight the villains tooth and nail, and Wayne gets to show a sentimental side for both the wife he still loves and the grandson he never knew.The focus may be on the family, but the style is violence. Boone and his men are evil renegades, and Wayne and sons represent old-fashioned goodness. The conflict is there, the heroes all rugged and handsome, and the wasted O'Hara undeniably one of the most beautiful veteran actresses still working in the 1970's. You can't take your eyes off her for her fleeting time on screen, and wish she was there more. The final battle between the two groups goes on far too long, and the situation with Wayne and O'Hara is never resolved, leading the viewer to make their own conclusions. In spite of that, it is hard not to like the film, even if this is one of Wayne's bloodier westerns.