A wonderful, sad, poetic film
10/10
Author: Thomas Jacques (lickskillet@hotmail.com) from Brinkley, Arkansas
7 May 2002

"Monte Walsh" is an astounding film, astounding in that so few people seem aware of it. Lee Marvin heads an outstanding cast including Jack Palance, Jeanne Moreau and Mitchell Ryan in this elegant adaptation of the Jack Schaefer ("Shane") novel. The movie may be thought of as one of those so-called "revisionist" films of the era which re-examined the concept of the western.

"Monte Walsh" offers a vision of a dying cowboy lifestyle, of large cattle corporations and fewer jobs, of the growth of towns and the death of rowdy freedoms, of hard lives and few attractive options. Marvin encapsulates many of these aspects as the title character, forced daily to realize his entire way of life is over. Director William A. Fraker does a fine job of drawing fine performances from his cast, and of capturing the hard beauty and constant state of change in the American West.