BUCK AND THE PREACHER (1972) ***1/2 There may be a better buddy movie, but if you think so it's just a matter of taste. There may be a better western, but if you think so it's just a matter of taste. The temptation is to say that Sidney Poitier must have really done his homework on how to direct a western; the reality is that it's too bad he didn't make this film 30 years earlier so that everyone else could have benefited from the elevated aesthetic of his approach. Poitier and Harry Belafonte, every line every glance every one of the millions of nuances per second are absolutely perfect. Poitier's great-you know and expect that-but if you have to draw a line between them Belafonte's even greater. Doin' his grunge thang!, he must have been laughing in make-up every day! And Ruby Dee's not just a love interest or eye candy, baby, she's a totemic force of nature, more than enough feminine power to counterbalance all the machismo burnin' everywhere like a predatory blacksmith shop! The bad guys are very bad (Cameron Mitchell), the Indians are very cool and very Indian (Enrique Lucero, Julie Robinson), the peripheral good guys (don't miss the ambivalent sheriff, John Kelly; is anyone more tormented or more philosophically consistent or in a tougher spot?). Benny Carter's music is all over the place, and picture perfect appropriate and inspiring and scary and serene every damn place it shows up. This film, man, it's like Neil Young's song "Ohio." It makes you just want to put on your jean jacket and go kick someone's ass who deserves it.
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