Hombre (Blu-ray) (Hombre)

Paul Newman is John Russell in this film, a white man raised by Apache Indians in late 19th century Arizona. As such, he’s Apache in thought, spirit and demeanour, having seen much sorrow and suffering among his people. At one point in the story a white woman challenges his values, accusing him of heartlessness. He responds to her as follows:“Lady, up there in those mountains there’s a whole people who have lost everything. They don’t have a place to spread their blankets. They’ve been insulted, diseased, made drunk and foolish. Now, you call the men who did that to them Christians and you trust them. I know them as white men and I don’t.”This helps explain a lot about him, especially the sadness that attends him, as he’s seen much evil done in the world by those who profess to care about charity, kindness, goodness and the brotherhood of man. He has no illusions about the white man, needing neither him nor his wicked god.Russell has been up in the mountains for most of his life with the Apache. They raised him, taught him how to live. He tames wild horses on the reservation and also works for the Indian police. So, he’s a no-nonsense man of law and order.Old man Russell has died in town. Could be his father or maybe an uncle. At any rate, an old boarding house has been willed to Russell. Henry Mendez, a Mexican associate, has sent word to Russell to come down from the mountains into town. Laconic, cool and detached, Russell is hardly interested. But he goes. He even cuts his long shoulder-length hair and removes his Apache headband. He shows up clean-cut in town in white man’s clothes, respectable on the surface.At the boarding house he meets Jessie, the woman referred to in the first paragraph above. She’s an earthy, straightforward, attractive woman now in her late 30s, unmarried and having an affair with the town sheriff, Frank Braden. Frank stays in the boarding house and sleeps with her. There’s one other couple there as well, a young married pair who quarrel and bicker, Billy Lee and his wife Doris. Mendez has told Jessie that John Russell is on his way to see the property. Jessie tidies up, kicking Frank out of her bed and room for the sake of propriety.Mendez shows up first. Jessie is polishing the silverware in the kitchen. Mendez smiles, knowing the character of Russell as Jessie does not. He refers to the flower pots on the window sill and napkins on the table, items of no value to Russell. The polished silverware won’t matter either, his view of the material world conditioned by life on the reservation.Sure enough, Mendez is right. The wild white man who tames wild Indian horses will not be tamed by civilisation, its power over him weak. Russell looks the place and Jessie over. He doesn’t mean to put her out of a job and a place to live, but he has no use for the boarding house. Selling it, which he intends to do, will provide more horses for the Apache, which is a form of currency for them.“You knew that even before you came here to see the place”, says Jessie.Russell doesn’t deny it, not being a sentimental man.The rest of their exchange is as follows:Russell: “Is there anything written in the will that makes a provision for you?”Jessie: “Not a line.”R.: “Then it turns out I don’t have any responsibility toward you at all, do I?”J.: “You don’t owe me a thing.’R.: “No, fact is I don’t.”He sells the place and Jessie is homeless. After this she turns to Frank, the sheriff, proposing he make an honest woman out of her. Usually it’s men who do the proposing, so Frank is amused by her offer. But he’s straight faced and deadly serious when he tells her:“I don’t need a wife, Jessie. I need out.”Out of town, out of policing, maybe even out of the dusty and desperate Wild West altogether, trying his luck elsewhere in the country or world.Shiftless, selfish men have been the story of Jessie’s life. She knows it but keeps coming back for more. She’s one of those strong women who cannot live without the weaker sex, those whose insecurities are hidden behind bravado and guns.Frank goes bad, throws away his tin star, joins an outlaw gang. But this happens later in the story. For now Frank is still Jessie’s man.John Ford’s “Stagecoach” (1939) brought an ensemble of characters together for a stagecoach journey across open country. This film does the same. Henry Mendez works for a stagecoach company in town. They run horses and coaches out of Sweet Mary, the name of the local town. But the line is suffering losses due to the railroad opening up, so transportation by coach is now sporadic.Dr. Alexander Favor and his wife Audra are in a hurry. They want a coach to take them from Sweet Mary to Bisby as soon as possible. Mendez explains that regular service has been suspended. No matter, says Audra. She and her husband will buy the horses and stagecoach. She says:“You’ll make a month’s wages in three days.”That’s how long the journey to Bisby will take — three days. From there she and Favor will be in flight to parts unknown, possibly to San Francisco and from there abroad.Dr. Favor is head of the Bureau of Indian Affairs on the San Carlos reservation (where Russell was raised). He’s intelligent and educated, possibly from the East Coast, urbane and apparently civilised. His wife is the same, elegant and beautiful, a woman of fashion and taste, even out here in the wild savage West. But the Favors are not all they seem, as they carry with them a dirty secret. They have swindled the Bureau and the Apache out of 12,000 dollars. The Indians go hungry, reduced to eating dog meat, while the Favors take flight.With the boarding house now closed and sold, Jessie has nowhere to go. So she’ll try her luck in Bisby next. Maybe that’s where an upstanding man is waiting for her. Billy Lee and Doris want out too. They’re fed up and think a change of scenery might do their relationship good. Russell is headed out of town too, back to San Carlos by way of Bisby. That makes six passengers plus Mendez the driver on top. The coach can squeeze in one more passenger only.A soldier buys the last ticket, a sergeant in the army who is going to Bisby to get married. He’s excited and happy, telling everyone in the waiting room his good news. Russell is passive, stoic, silent — distinctly unimpressed. Billy Lee and Doris are silent as well, their young marriage currently at rock bottom. Mendez is behind the desk, concerned only with paperwork. Only Jessie feigns interest, congratulating the soldier on his happiness. The journey ought to be relatively harmonious, but it won’t be.Cicero Grimes arrives. He isn’t subtle and quiet. He’s big, burly and mean and always gets his way. The door of the waiting room crashes open. Grimes has a huge leather horse saddle slung over his shoulder. He wants a ticket for the coach. Sorry, Mendez tells him, full up. Grimes looks around the waiting room, asks Mendez, “They going?” They are, Mendez says.Grimes approaches Russell. He’s going to need Russell’s ticket. Ah, but that’s a problem, because Russell bought the ticket, not Grimes. Though Grimes can’t know it now, he has chosen his victim badly. But luckily for Grimes the soldier is chivalrous and speaks up, defending Russell’s right not to be bullied and harassed. Instead, it’s the soldier who will be bullied and harassed. The situation is simple: hand over the ticket now or find a gun to defend yourself. The soldier has no gun and Grimes means business. He isn’t joking. The ticket isn’t worth life and death, so the soldier begrudgingly surrenders it to Grimes, leaving the waiting room with a hangdog look.The journey will be marked by two powerful things: money and greed. The money belongs to the Indians, the greed to Dr. Favor, his wife, Grimes, Frank Braden, and other outlaws in the gang of Grimes, including a Mexican bandito who will come to call Russell ‘Hombre’, which in Spanish means ‘man’, or in this case The Man, because that’s what Russell is. Grimes thinks he’s the alpha male, the man in charge, but he’s wrong. Russell is. He needn’t be demonstrative in announcing his machismo the way Grimes boldly does, as he’s got nothing to prove to anyone.The clash will come because it has to. Drama depends on crisis and on crises being resolved. Storytelling is always neat this way, unlike life which never fully resolves anything. It’s death’s job to do that, clearing up everything in the end.How can the ending be happy? It can’t. But at least we have the faint hope the money will not stay with those to whom it doesn’t belong.Russell is an existential figure. He has the clarity of those cleansed of illusions. He has seen and understood too much. His view of life is harshly honest, not sentimentally sanitising. Hubris, bluster, lies and hypocrisy don’t interest him. He’s used to them, used to seeing them performed. This isolates him, separates him from his kind. At least from the wicked among them. He would rather be back where he belongs, high up in the mountains among people who live as people do, not like savages in towns such as Sweet Mary, a place ironically named by cynical and hypocritical people.

a strong cast delivers on all levels. newman is at his very best as the complex lead character, john russell

As said the sound quality is very poor but it is a good western

Excellent western. Very good characters and story.

Awesome western

Brilliantly conceived and filmed philosophical Western, with all the protagonists putting in a very well acted characterisation.Paul Newman classy as ever, and Richard Boone is as badass a baddie outlaw as they come.

Newman is probably best known for Butch & Sundance, but he made several excellent westerns and this was one of the best. As the white boy raised by the Apache and taught their ways he really has no allegance to the white population and little liking for most of them, so it is ironic that he loses his life protecting them. The film has a good cast of familiar faces including Richard Boone as the chief villain and a good storyline from the pen of Elmore Leonard who wrote several good westerns before switching to crime novels. Many of his stories have been filmed. EG. Get Shorty. JR.

They really don't make them as good as this anymore.......