Not in the same league as Howard Hawks' masterpiece Rio Bravo, or the excellent El Dorado, Rio Lobo is still an overall good western. The weakness of the overall cast is lifted, as happens often, by Wayne.

While hardly the most auspicious of swan songs, Hawks? underrated final film sees a reprise of some of his favorite themes ? including the siege/hostage exchange situation from RIO BRAVO (1959), a Western he had already partially remade as EL DORADO (1966); incidentally, John Wayne starred in all three titles. It opens with an elaborate gold shipment robbery from a moving train by Confederate soldiers; Wayne is a Unionist Colonel who goes after the culprits but, the war over, befriends ?enemies? Jorge Rivero and Chris Mitchum when they reveal the identity of a couple of Yankee traitors ? one is a deputy sheriff and the other an unscrupulous landowner (Victor French). The film shares its partnership-between-Union-and-Confederate-soldiers angle with Wayne?s earlier Western THE UNDEFEATED (1969) ? but, Hawks being Hawks, it?s presented here in a far more complex (and rewarding) manner. As is usual for the director, a spirited female protagonist is thrown into the fray ? in this case, Jennifer O?Neill as a traveling-show performer who falls foul of French and his dastardly sheriff (Mike Henry); of course, she becomes romantically involved with Rivero ? a situation Wayne observes with bemusement. Jack Elam is a delight as Mitchum?s trigger-happy coot of a foster parent, making him an ideal replacement for the Walter Brennan of RIO BRAVO. The film also features an unusually wistful score for a genre effort courtesy of Jerry Goldsmith. All things considered, however, RIO LOBO still emerges as the least of the loose Wayne/Hawks Western trilogy: this is chiefly due to severe undercasting when compared to the earlier efforts ? with, say, Rivero being no match for James Caan from EL DORADO. Though a lot of exposition is necessary for the various plot threads to fall into place, the film (co-scripted by Hawks regular Leigh Brackett) provides plenty of action throughout its almost 2-hour length. The climax is exciting and well-staged, and includes the revenge on Henry by a young girl he has viciously scarred for life (played by Sherry Lansing, future head of the Fox and Paramount studios and currently Mrs. William Friedkin) ? which, however, calls for O?Neill to be virtually absent from these final stages and the film to end abruptly (albeit on a running joke involving Wayne)! Unfortunately, too, the DivX copy I watched proved rather hazy and suffered from occasional compression artifacts.