cemturkoglu
What a piano score and what an atmospheric movie !
Prismark10
Bad Company is directed and co-written by Robert Benton. The film opens with some soldiers going inside a house and dragging out a boy in a dress and throwing them in a wagon with other boys who have been avoiding conscription. The film was released in an era when some American men were avoiding the Vietnam draft for real.Barry Brown is one such boy who is given some money by his parents and told to skip town and escape the draft but encounters Jeff Bridges who takes his money and later they team up with his young gang to seek a fortune in the wild west frontier yet they end up with misadventures along the way.This western is an unromanticized story where the young men on the wrong side of law fall prey to bigger and meaner men. The film is elegiac in tone yet its peppered with humour and even playfulness between the two leads as they go through mutual distrust but Bad Company has no sweet coating.
Bruce Banner
I'm a huge fan of Jeff Bridges. Great all around actor who is a pleasure to watch and the Big Lebowski is an all time favorite of mine.But the movie is still just not worth it. Its just a rambling, meandering story with little story spine and a lack of any true drama. If you are on the edge of your seat it will probably be from dozing rather than from any gripping sort of suspense or interest. I believe it was given kudos by some critics for being a different type of western: more gritty, real, less glamorized and all that. Honestly, just because a film does something different, doesn't mean it was good entertainment and that's the most important criteria for a good movie.So, if you want to then watch it but you can definitely do better.
bkoganbing
In this American homage to Oliver Twist, young Oliver is Barry Brown a god fearing church going youth from Ohio who would like very much to be not taken by Mr. Lincoln's draft in the Civil War. He runs away from Ohio to head out of the Union to the western territories, but of course runs into some Bad Company.The Bad Company is Jeff Bridges from Pennsylvania an incorrigible Artful Dodger type and he's got himself as good a ragamuffin gang that ever cut a purse in London around the same time. A lot of what went west could be described today as white trash and this crowd definitely fits the bill. They do what they can to survive in and around the Missouri border area, but they also want to head west, just haven't the means. A gang who's only lacking a Fagin.Bad Company as a film works because of the good chemistry between Bridges and Brown. As the two get to know each other, strengths and weaknesses both, they form a bond that enables them to survive the frontier. Of course its Brown who winds up doing things his Methodist upbringing told him were unthinkable.Such great character actors as John Quade, David Huddleston, Ed Lauter, and Jim Davis are all in Bad Company. As this came out during the Vietnam War the film did get a sympathetic audience from younger viewers and not just because of its young stars.Bad Company is a fun western for its time, still quite enjoyable today.
AD
