Creed II
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Critics Consensus: No consensus yet.
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Critic Consensus: No consensus yet.
All Critics (9) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (0) | DVD (1)
A complex and nuanced examination of envy, resentment and filial loyalty.
Atmospheric Western that is also filled with crime, mystery and suspense.
This adult psychological Western represents one of the best collaborations between director Anthony Mann and star Jimmy Stewart.
The fifth of Anthony Mann's five Westerns with Jimmy Stewart, The Man from Laramie looks more and more like the best of the lot.
A revenge Western Shakespeare might have liked.
Taut, brutal Western with King Lear overtones
Beautifully filmed and chock full of the wide ranging Western vistas the genre demands, the stranger (Jimmy Stewart) comes to town to find revenge for the death of his brother. The acting is okay here but it has trouble when up against a script like outta of some juvenile detention facility, as clunky as Lincoln Logs.
Super Reviewer
An okay movie for a western, Stewart is a great actor, and he brings the movie to life.
Like the Sons of Katie Elder, The Man from Laramie deals heavily with father/son relationships in the old west, and how the weak son fails the empire-carving father. The son Dave (Alex Nicol) isn't just weak and ignorant, he's also mean-spirited. Vic (Arthur Kennedy) is put in charge of "keeping" Dave, but Dave travels across the ranch like an oafish baby, and Vic can only keep him in line so well. But Vic has other reasons for disliking Dave, especially the fact that when the old man (Donald Crisp) dies, Dave will inherit (and likely fritter away) all the hard work he's put into the ranch. Lockhart (James Stewart) has come to to town supposedly to deliver a shipment to the general store, but his real agenda is to discover who sold the repeating rifles to the apaches who killed his brother. There are no stereotypical villains in this movie, no one is strictly speaking "evil" (except perhaps dave, who just wants to be the man his father was), they're more misguided. When the old man came out west, he had to be tough, as there wasn't any law to protect him and his property. Times have changed, and he wants his son to learn how to do the bookkeeping, but all Dave wants to do is play cowboy and spends every opportunity looking for a fight. Lockhart is shrewd and cool as a cucumber as he works towards finding his revenge, and it's a vengeance that won't be denied. The psychology of the characters is well fleshed out and puts the Man from Laramie a step above the stereotypical black-and-white westerns.
James Stewart plays an army captain on the trail of gun runners who sold rifles to the Apache resulting in the death of his brother. Mann and Stewart made some great westerns together but this one somehow didn't have the spark that makes a film special for me. Stewart is as reliable as ever and Mann's direction solid, but there's something so terribly generic about this one. I think black and white suited Mann's style far better, and the plot to this film seems so formulaic and predictable that I was stifling yawns by the time it was half finished. The characters were all a little too familiar, the outcome inevitable and there's very little in the way of action along the way. Not bad by any means, but it's not in the same league as the likes of Winchester '73.
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