'Bronco Billy' is an odd film. Parts of it seem recycled from every other Clint Eastwood movie you've ever seen: Clint's laconic persona, the bar-room brawl, the inevitably ultimately successful seduction of an initially reluctant woman; it even has a musical interlude (as had his first movie as a director, 'Play Misty for Me'), in this case provided by Merle Haggard. But the mood of the film is very strange. There's an almost-serious backdrop (the story of a group of misfits who somehow find themselves through a life that many would consider sadly pathetic) and a laid back mood, but these are accompanied by a crazy plot that is executed so perfunctorily that the film seems to be merely going through the motions; there's a zaniness to the story, but it's told without pace. There are a few good jokes, but nothing seems real or has any edge, in this gently pointless comedy.
Review of Bronco Billy
