HOMBRE (1967) * There are a lot of sensible-looking people wandering around out there, claiming that they've never seen a bad Paul Newman flick. Most of them haven't seen Hombre, and you can amuse the rest with the "rubber pencil trick." The problem isn't casting Paul as a blue-eyed Indian; there are all sorts of situations and genetic incidents that could bring about such a thing, and it's reasonably enough explained. Nor is the problem that he sounds very much like Eeyore in a Winnie the Pooh cartoon. In fact Paul isn't really the problem, he's only bad by his own standards. The problem is that it's an excruciatingly dull movie: there's a bar, there's a hotel, there's a stagecoach, there's an outlaw, and there's no way in hell we're gonna get out of this without a gunfight and, given the rest of it, it's gonna be a dull one. Since Paul ain't talkin' much, and the producers plan on hinging this western on dialogue, Fredric March and Diane Cilento are brought in to prop it up. The dialogue is a desperado for depth and gravitas, but only achieves even superficial interest intermittently. It is possible, upon considering the characters, their motivations and behaviors and fates, to gain some insight into the "great statement" that they're trying to make. To do so requires considering the movie even after you've escaped, and I don't recommend it.