Joshua (1976) User Reviews

Western vengeance with unstopped pursuit starred by a king of blaxploitation, Fred Williamson

[ma-cortes · 5/10 · 16 November 2007]

After a savage massacre of his mother and kidnapping a girl, the black rider (Fred Williamson) , a civil war veteran , set out a personal vendetta and a rescue against a band of outlaws . He carries the vengeance in his heart and goes after the baddies in an interminable pursuit . Former rules of the code of West are dated and he's is guided by unrelenting revenge . He embarks on a bloody reckoning and during his quest helps a beautiful Mexican woman (Isela Vega). The black rider travels the Soutwestern territories and crosses paths until finding nasties .

This is an average Western revenge plenty of violence , riding chases , shootouts, grisly killings and results to be quite entertaining, in spite of some slow-moving scene s. The chief excitement lies in seeing what new and amazing victim can be executed by the revenger black rider, as the nasties are beheaded , hanged , dropped a rattle-snake or bombing by means of dynamite . With similar plot to Italian Western , whose main argument being ¨revenge¨ and likeness to ¨Chato¨ where Charles Bronson revenges , one by one , the killers his family . Displays extraordinary landscapes with glimmer cinematography like is well reflected on the breathtaking outdoors filmed in natural parks of Monument Valley . This Western with lots of action packs a boring and repetitious musical score by synthesizer . The film is starred by Fred Williamson , one of the first African-American male action star of the Blaxploitation of the early 1970s , including his filmography the followings : ¨Black Caesar¨ , ¨Hammer¨ , ¨The man bolt and Black eye¨ ; besides , Isela Vega who played Western for Cantinflas in ¨Por mis Pistolas¨ and Sam Peckinpah , in ¨Bring me the head of Alfred Garcia¨ . The motion picture was regularly directed by Larry Spangler , director and producer of ¨Legend and soul of Charlie¨ , again with Fred Williamson . The film attained lukewarm reception by the public and achieved limited success .

Not Horrible! Just standard.

[Robiep · 6/10 · 7 May 2004]

This really isn't as bad as the other review makes it sound. It does have a simple plot, and actually moves along fairly quick. Not much time is spend on any sort of character development, but we've all seen these types of characters in every other western anyhow. It's true that there is not a lot of dialog from Fred Williamson, but his character (Joshua) is a lone cowboy sneaking along quietly through the desert. What would he say? And to who? The film has a real nice gritty Italian look to it and its starkness works fairly well with the story. It's not going to be the greatest movie you've ever seen but it's interesting enough to watch once. I saw this on DVD which was made for a letter boxed version. They didn't shrink the image or pan and scan etc. So sometimes the picture is cut off a little. It was slightly annoying to watch.

Almost Perfect In Its Simplicity

[hokeybutt · 6/10 · 23 December 2004]

JOSHUA: THE BLACK RIDER (3 outta 5 stars) I am almost tempted to give this movie 5 out of 5 stars because it is almost perfect in its simplicity... a western movie can't get much more straight-forward than this: a man's mother is killed... and he spends the rest of the movie tracking and killing the men who did it. But, really, the acting is kind of poor and the direction is uninspired. There isn't really much dialogue so you can't say the script was well-done. Also, the movie is kind of slow... but personally I don't usually count that as a flaw... I *like* movies that take their time. Fred Williamson plays the title character... the bounty hunter bent on revenge for his mama's demise. The bad guys kidnap a woman along the way and rape her a few times but by the movie's end she has inexplicably allied herself with one of her assailants. Practically the entire soundtrack of this movie is a 90 second piece of faux-spaghetti-western music that gets repeated again and again and again... towards the end of the movie it almost becomes comical when that same old theme is repeated yet again. I think you need to *really* be a fan of westerns to like this one.. otherwise you are probably going to be bored beyond belief.

Not very well made... or presented

[Wizard-8 · 25 June 2009]

I remember seeing this movie years ago, and my memories of it were that it was a pretty decent western. So when I got the chance to see it again I took the opportunity. Sadly, time had faded the negative things about this movie.

To be sure, there are a few positive things I can say. Williamson is an imposing figure, dressed in black. The scenery, often covered in packs of snow, is impressive. Combining the scenery with the musical score makes for some haunting sequences.

But most of the movie doesn't work. To begin with, the characters. Williamson's character isn't well developed; he doesn't have that many chances to speak, or have an opportunity to make a character. The bad guys are even thinner characters, all of them seemingly alike.

There is also a lot of poor direction. Take the scene with the rattlesnake, for instance. There should be some tension and suspense with such a deadly animal, but there is NO feeling at all! It's presented in the dullest way possible, a feeling that keeps coming up in the rest of the movie.

Although some of the music is haunting, the low budget of the movie means that the same bars of music are played over and over, which becomes annoying. But a bigger problem (and the main problem I had with the movie) is that this movie is VERY slow and padded. Although it runs only about 82 minutes, a good chunk of this could easily been taken out with a snappier pace and some wise editing. Though this would probably resulted in a running time not qualifying for a feature-length movie.

One last thing I would like to bring up: The pan-and-scanning of this widescreen movie is TERRIBLE. You can't properly read the opening and closing credits, and when there is more than one character on screen, one of them is often cut off (sometimes ALL of the characters are chopped offscreen!) This movie needs to be seen in its full widescreen glory, but since the movie is now in the public domain, it seems very unlikely anyone would spend the expense to release this movie on DVD restored.

Should Have Been a Pretty Good Blaxploitation Western

[Uriah43 · 4/10 · 22 February 2016]

With the Civil War just ended a Union soldier by the name of "Joshua" (Fred Williamson) is looking forward to starting a new life and is on his way to meet his mother who had been staying with a young couple who are about to be married. Unfortunately, upon arriving there he learns that 5 men have killed his mother and abducted the young woman (played by Brenda Venus). Since the trail is still relatively fresh and the posse has abandoned the search Joshua decides to hunt down the murderers on his own. And none of these outlaws have ever faced anything so deadly. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that it had a fairly interesting plot. However, the music played during several of the action scenes was rather annoying, the character development needed improvement and some of the scenarios lacked any sense of realism. To top it off, I didn't especially care for the ending either. In essence then, what should have been a pretty good Blaxploitation Western turned out to be slightly below average and I recommend it only to those who might be interested in a film of this sub-genre.

Joshua he fought the battle

[froberts73 · 5/10 · 20 April 2011]

We've seen the vengeance-chase thing, the silent hero thing so many times and, with "Joshua" it's a case of here we go again, this time with lesser results.

Fred Williamson acquited himself well, but the rest of the cast could have used some bad guy acting lessons.

The music could have used less excess. At one point it sounded like somebody was just learning to play "Chopsticks."

Also unnecessary was the 'bosom' scene. We all knew she had one. Jeez! I must say they were more 'bazoom' than your everyday bosom.

The fight scene was quite something with sound effects unlike any ever heard before. It was weird. When they bonked each other it sounded like a symphony ocrchestra bass drum. By the way, every now and then it looked like they came close to connecting.

The scenery was excellent, the horses were pretty. "Joshua" did well when he fought the battle of Jericho. This Joshua had more of a struggle, minus God in his corner.

Outlaw Groupie

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 25 October 2010]

Joshua starring Fred Williamson in the title role tells the story of a returning black civil war veteran who finds his mother murdered and some other woman abducted by this gang of some really loathsome cretins. Of course Williamson's duty is clear.

The film was shot in the sacred John Ford country of Monument Valley, Arizona which as a tourist spot boasts of its fame as a location for some of the best westerns ever done. This however was not one of them.

The story of Patty Hearst was fresh in people's minds and the woman abducted decides she likes it with the gang. Let's say she becomes less and less inhibited in her sexual relations with the gang and she's more like an outlaw groupie by the time the film ends.

Unless you're a fan of Fred Williamson, pass this one by.

Joshua IS available on DVDin Widescreen!

[treshon · 4/10 · 30 June 2009]

The previous poster commented that this movie was not available in Widescreen.

There's at least 2 ways to get this in Widescreen. I've got one on the 'Quality' label - it's a 2 movie set on one disc. The other movie is some William Shatner film. I was pretty shocked to see it in widescreen considering the package was only $5.00.

The 2nd way is on the 'Legends of the West' 8 Movie Collection. I'm pretty sure that's widescreen as well.

Slow movie that drags on.

The theme song repeats all the way throughout the movie. Don't remember if there was more than one actual song played throughout it's entirety.

This movie is really only for Blaxploitation/Fred Williamson completests.

Arguably the Worst of the Genre

[leelacade · 2/10 · 11 June 2018]

I've 200 Spaghetti Westerns, so I watch a lot that most people would consider of borderline merit, so I'm very capable of overlooking production shortcuts for the sake of the bigger picture. I couldn't with this one. It wasn't so much awful as it was really incompetent.

Fred Williamson does well in the lead role...but he should stay away from script writing!!! Or at least hire a consultant that knows something about the period? Get a continuity editor? Learn some basic physics? Technically the history, physical possibility of a thing happening, etc., was actually as bad as Quentin Tarantino. Which is interesting because this is obviously the basis for Django Unchained, and it really shows what an idiot Tarantino is that he couldn't improve on this cow pat.

The errors are legion. Makes me rate Spaghetti Westerns higher. Ever the worst of the worst never make any of the glaring mistakes this one does. The worst has to be the attitude change in the female lead. When? Why? How? No. Just happens. 13 shots from two six shooters. People 200 yards behind a person they're chasing firing six shooters, some pointing up into the air, in what would simply have been a waste of ammunition. No one reloads even once in the movie. Dynamite 2 years before it was commercially available. Joshua looses hardware constantly...and then it's magically back in the next scene. And some stuff that is just so non-sensical and pointless that even Tarantino would cringe. Well, I guess not, because he remade it. The scene where the old outlaw dies. Besides what he did would take hours, it's just POINTLESS! Not to mention it spawns yet another continuity error in the following scene. You could write five pages on the continuity errors section of this page.

I gave it a 2 instead of a 1 because the scenery was nice, it was a western and Fred was OK. It is the first SW in my collection of 200 that I will not be archiving. Yep. First ever, watch and dump. Given my elastic tastes in the genre, that's really saying something.

great? terrible? in-between?

[thesiouxfallskid · 7/10 · 19 August 2007]

This film I consider a very good example of how a film may elicit a variety of responses. I have learned not to take too seriously the comments by others or I may miss a real gem. Not that I would put this film in the gem category but definitely the good side of in-between. I am amazed to read how some abhorred the music. I recall how the music in Keoma drove some people crazy while others (like me) liked it. In Joshua the music fit the film perfectly, especially the low growl when the camera turned to the black rider. So (as we well understand) people's tastes vary. I went for the acting in this one also. I even liked the bad teeth on those ugly bad guys. Though I prefer an unpredictable story line, this film can be good when one prefers sometime something simple. Credibility got stretched for my taste but the music saved it for me. Not bad. I won't forget this one.

What a waste!

[Diosprometheus · 2/10 · 30 May 2004]

********SPOILER************

Fred Williamson's Joshua is your basic Vengeance themed Spaghetti Western. This one is about a black civil war veteran who returns home to find his mother has been murdered by a gang of white thugs. He sets out to track them and extract his vengeance. Although it is well-mounted and beautifully photographed, the film is lacking in about every other respect. It is basically without plot with no twists or turns other than the obligatory hero gets shot and recovers scene. There is little character developed, almost no dialog, a couple scenes that make absolutely no sense and that do not advance the story in any way. There is no intimacy in this film with any of the characters. Isela Vega plays a farmer's wife whom the gang kidnaps and repeatedly rapes. By the end of the movie she has developed an unexplained and unexamined relationship with the head of the Gang. The fetching beauty is totally wasted in this movie in a thankless role.

This is a cynically scripted film that asks very little of the viewer other than to watch Mr. Williamson awkwardly ride a horse across the countryside. Ken Maynard, he is not.

One feels that had Williamson developed his characters and plot more he might have had something here, although the vengeance themed Western has been done ad infinitum with two much better examples being Nevada Smith with Steve McQueen, and Last Train from Gun Hill with Kirk Douglas. By the end of this contemptuous movie, the viewer doesn't really care about any of it.

a journey worth the troubles of the 'wild west'

[spj-4 · 8/10 · 8 November 2007]

I don't usually like westerns, but I enjoyed this immensely.

Twice!

I didn't find the music irritating, as some found it. I thought it developed the drama all the more with each drumbeat & rhythm, as if embracing the beat of hooves on the mostly primitive landscapes encountered! I enjoyed the adventure from the comfortable distance of a lounge room setting, far removed from rattle-snakes & even more vicious & treacherous humans, who were shown generosity of spirit & heart, that they attempted to cruelly & aggressively turn on their hosts.

Such remains mostly unresolved, but I liked the coolness of the loner, quietly righting wrongs along the way, mostly against the odds, but with effortless precision & skillfulness if not mastery as he goes about his unfolding journey. You can't help but think this guy would have been a hero, probably much unappreciated, in his earlier journeys! Hence, "the black rider"! Probably relentless & skillful & talented beyond what he has cause to display in each interaction!

Personally, I was mindful of the concept of 'vengeance is mine says the Lord!' I could well imagine God inspiring such a man in pursuit of love for his beloved, mother or wife or other aspects of love, as variously reflected here in the powerless but generous farmer, & the quiet ways of the returned war hero on a new mission, who seemed to be threatened more than he spoke! But in his own way, he was a VERY believable "007" in a real world setting of immense hardship & injustice we are not much removed from, but we should be grateful much of the world has moved on from much of what is found here!

"The Wild West" was not a place we'd want to return to mostly! Yet its somehow all around us in each advertising break & news bulletin & insights into worlds we are free to observe but not interact with or help, secure we think, but always being observed. Even from the comfort of a lounge chair, where the viewer is free to journey into frontier land for a gripping journey like this, mostly of hardship & heartbreak & enduring suffering, but of much merit, courage, relentlessness into bravery & towards justice & love against the odds!

And take with you, as with me, the drum & simple rhythmic beat the repetitive music masterfully captured. As a man of good heart marches on to his inner beat of heart & spirit & soul! Whatever those around him make of him & his love & his quietly honoured concept of justice, integrity & love!!!

Fred Williamson imitates Clint Eastwood with mixed results

[FightingWesterner · 6/10 · 25 September 2009]

Joshua (Fred Williamson) tracks the band of cutthroats who shot down his defenseless mother (not a good thing to do to a strong black man) through the desert and into an implicitly racist town where things really heat up.

Great location photography makes this low-budget blaxploitation/western look better than it's dollar figure would suggest.

This is a minimalist viewing experience where the story (like a silent picture) is told primarily in pictures with most of the sparse dialog inconsequential, which I think explains the mixed reviews.

Personally, I thought it was an okay movie but I'd wish that the filmmakers would have beefed up the script with more dramatics and emotions, playing up the racism in the town and forcing Williamson to fight to extract the despicable villains.

Also, It would have been nice to see a recognizable character actor (Aldo Ray or Cameron Mitchell anyone? Slim Pickens maybe?) as the heavy.

The repetitive score was a minus.

Dear Lord what a horrible movie

[willandcharlenebrown · 1/10 · 27 August 2020]

The worst cinematography I've ever seen! Bad acting from every single character other than Fred Williams. Bad script! Bad ending! I mean just bad all around. Wow I'm shocked. I hope this movie cost $20 to make because that's all it looks like it took.

When "Joshua" blew his horn, the FILM came tumbling down.

[Poseidon-3 · 3 July 2007]

Blaxploitation figure Williamson starred in and wrote this western revenge saga which bears a passing resemblance to the equally cheap "Cry Blood, Apache". He plays a returning Civil War soldier coming to meet his mother Jackson who is a domestic for Hendrick and Venus, a farmer and his mail-order wife. When a gaggle of dusty outlaws stops in for some drinks and vittles, they begin to eye Venus and a scuffle breaks out in which Jackson is killed. When Williamson finds out that his mother is dead, he sets out to systematically eliminate the quintet of killers who, incidentally, have taken Venus with them for comfort. Like many films before and after this one, a lone man stalks and kills a series of bad guys, always finding a way to get each one alone. This wouldn't be so bad if the killings had been handled in any sort of creative or arresting way. Williamson cuts a nice figure, all in black, against the dusty landscape and he's intimidating to be sure. Unfortunately, with an exception or two, he makes the other actors look like they just got the script seconds before the cameras rolled. Hendrick does okay with his small role and Vega isn't bad as a woman who briefly distracts and aids Williamson during his quest. Bartlett, as the ringleader of the villains, is nice to look at, but has no remarkable personality to offer. Willingham plays a character named Weasle and is excruciating to listen to, always screeching and laughing obnoxiously. The worst, however, is Venus. It's impossible to imagine that the sounds she emits through her voice-box could come from a human being and not a marsupial who is being dangled over a vat of boiling sulfur and oil. Her character is very badly conceived to begin with, but she sinks it even further with her thoroughly inept portrayal. By the time she's ready to be rescued, the audience has already been praying for most of the movie that she'll be shot in the head! Whoever's idea it was to make the kidnap victim completely unbearable should have been straightened out right away! The other major debit of the film is the agonizing musical score. The same six-note sequence is played, with an occasional variation, over and OVER and O-V-E-R throughout the course of the movie! Every once in a while, something else is played, but mostly it's this same droning, horrid bit of music that threatens to continue forever. Williamson makes this passable, but it surely isn't good.

Fred Williamson was good the movie not so much

[jordondave-28085 · 5/10 · 4 May 2023]

(1976) Joshua WESTERN

Do you want to see many scenes of pointless minutes of people riding their horses, then this film is for you. Story provided by it's star by the name of Fred Williamson, who solidified his mark when he starred in those "Shaft" films plays Joshua- hence the title ,returns home from serving the union cavalry only to be driven for revenge after five outlaws killed his dear old mother. And the timing couldn't even been more perfect as a small group of law makers, also come back to inform the only witness living that they had just decided to give up on their chase for some convoluted reason, so Joshua decides to take it upon himself to go after them himself. If there was any reason I would "want" to like this movie, it would've been the inventive ways each of these outlaws get killed without resorting to using a gun, but although it succeeds to do that- it's also convoluted at the same time and it is for that reason it's hard to accept this as an involving film. For instance, on one scene, Joshua succeeds into spearing a wooden spear onto one of the "wanted" outlaws on the neck, then almost immediately on the next scene he's unable to find and locate them, and they're not traveling anymore faster than they had last left. What this film does, is it defies logic and science, and the person to be blamed for that is the director Larry G. Spangler. I mean, how did it come about that Joshua also had jurisdiction about the girl that the wanted outlaws had kidnapped and assaulted decide on her fate. The movie never answers leaving viewers with more questions that can't be answered.

Worse Than You Could Imagine

[StrictlyConfidential · 1/10 · 20 March 2022]

"Joshua" was originally released back in 1976.

Believe me, you're wasting your time with this dud. On all counts, this is movie-making at its absolute worst.

Anyway - As the story goes - A black Civil War soldier, returning home from the war, discovers that his mother had been killed by a gang of white thugs. Joshua becomes a vigilante and sets out to track down his mother's murderers to make them pay for their crime.

Slow & boring

[droidster-07654 · 1/10 · 26 August 2022]

Alot of movie - Panning people riding horses through the wilderness.

Thin story line - bad acting Cringeworthy.- Such a shame as it had potential - which unfortunatley only lasted the first 5 mins.

Passable revenge Western

[Woodyanders · 6/10 · 15 March 2018]

Tough black soldier Joshua (a credible performance by Fred Williamson, who also wrote the slight script) returns home after fighting for the Union during the Civil War only to discover that his beloved mother was murdered by a gang of evil white bandits. Joshua decides to track said gang so he can exact a harsh revenge on all of them.

This attempt at emulating the gritty style and brooding mood of an Italian spaghetti Western is a decidedly mixed bag: While Larry G. Spangler's competent direction, the breathtaking Monument Valley locations, the laconic dialogue, the handsome cinematography, and the stark serious tone are all up to par, the often sluggish pacing, predictable meandering narrative, and Mike Irwin's jarringly wonky and incongruous electronic score leave something to be desired. The acting is likewise hit or miss: Cal Bartlett cuts a suitably hateful figure as ruthless ring leader Jed, Brenda Venus makes for a fetching damsel in distress, Isela Vega contributes a lively turn as a feisty Mexican woman, and Ralph Willingham dreadfully hams it up as annoying comic relief crazy old coot Weasle. An okay diversion.

One of the better "spaghetti" westerns

[princeacey · 8/10 · 22 May 2007]

I agreed completely with Robiep's review. I too saw it/ own it on DVD. I got it in a 20-movie "Mean Guns" westerns 5-DVD set. It was a sight-unseen purchase which has turned out to be a VERY good purchase. A lot of rare "gems" were in this movie set. And Joshua I felt is Definitely a excellent Fred Williamson film & western! Fred Williamson is an amazing actor & writer. Many have said that "Joshua" is not an "original" plot or idea. While that may be true, (Some of the scenes we have seen in many a western) I felt they were handled from every original angles. ***SPOILER ALLERT***

The "rattlesnake" scene is hilarious!!

"Who are you?????" "I'm my mothers' son."

[Hey_Sweden · 6/10 · 22 March 2018]

Fred Williamson also authored the story and wrote the screenplay for this Western vehicle for himself. He plays the title character, a black man who fought for the Union side during the Civil War. He travels to the homestead where his mother (Kathryn Jackson, "The Black Godfather") has been a maid for a frontier family. Unfortunately, an outlaw gang has just been there. They've killed his mom and made off with the ranchers' wife (Brenda Venus, "Foxy Brown"). Naturally, he relentlessly stalks them, aiming to kill them one at a time in the name of vengeance.

Produced and directed by Larry G. Spangler ("The Life and Times of Xaviera Hollander"), this is neither very good nor very bad. It's a rather middle-of-the-road film with competent but undistinguished filmmaking. The scenery looks reasonably good as shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio, but you can tell this was still done on a budget. The music by Mike Irwin is fairly decent, but also repetitive. The Hammers' story is very simple and straightforward, and leads to a cynical ending. It's violent without being very gory, and poor Venus does get raped by the bad guys, although this *is* implied rather than explicitly shown on screen. The cast, overall, is nondescript, adequately filling out their roles but never amounting to much. Mexican superstar Isela Vega ("Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia") doesn't get a lot to work with, playing the good hearted woman who comes to Williamsons' aid at critical times. Ralph Willingham, in his only film role, is annoying as shrill old fart Weasel, a member of the gang.

Taking everything into consideration, this is an okay viewing for a Hammer fan / completist, but it's absolutely nothing special.

Six out of 10.

An embarrassingly inept theme song subtracts from overall approval.

[drtturner · 23 April 2006]

Someone, even if the star of the film Williamson himself, should have never allowed this film to reach the public with the simplistic kindergarten theme song played in the opening credits as well as various times through the film. No one would be expecting the music editor to make a monumental catchy theme along the lines of the Bonanza theme or Issac Hayes' Shaft. With such a humble production, the task of the music department would be to merely stay out of the way and not detract from the overall end product. Unfortunately, the music in this film fails miserably and detracts from any momentum that the average acting gains. Williams is pretty good in the lead role and his stoic approach is in tune with the Western gunslinger theme. A prologue showing Abraham Lincoln's picture is mumbled and difficult to hear so seeing as it doesn't add to the film it should have been left out all together. Williamson appears to struggle at times on the horse, having to kick it too many times then winding up with his hat falling around his neck and sending him bobbing too harshly. The real sin here remains the theme song. With three seconds of effort my "Anty Up, Black horse, black hat, black rider...cowboy...Whew Whew" "Move along Black hat, black horse, black rider, go go " would be annoying, but less so than the instrumental that was settled for. Also it is not as if 1975 did not have a dearth of talent to make a worthy theme at a low budget price. While Quincy Jones and Stevie Wonder would be unaffordable, an even exchange of exposure for talent could have been worked out with someone like Billy Preston, Bob Grusin or Randy Crawford churning out a passable theme track.

"You know what it feels like to kill?"

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 18 November 2012]

While watching this film I was reminded of a 1970's clunker titled "Cry Blood, Apache", a movie Western that still holds sway with me as one of the worst I've seen. But the thing I liked about that picture that's done here as well is the inventive way the title character goes about dispatching the outlaws that killed his mother in the opening set up. I particularly liked the flying rattlesnake routine, but if you analyze these things the way I do, the mechanics of that 'kill' is a bit of a stretch, because that rattler would have had to strike it's victim on initial impact, and that doesn't seem likely. But the idea was pretty cool. 'Cry Blood' was even cooler, the bad guy got a bag over his head with the snake inside - think about it.

The second outlaw to be done in by Joshua (Fred Williamson) presented a bit of a puzzling situation. It occurred right in the bad guys' camp, but it wasn't made clear how Joshua got near enough to spear his victim at such close quarters. And because he did, I had to wonder why he didn't take out the rest of the gang at the same time, they were all asleep as well. But then the picture would have been over in about thirty minutes.

There are other anomalies as well. The real head scratcher for me was how the kidnapped and repeatedly raped woman portrayed by Brenda Venus went so far overboard in her Stockholm Syndrome transformation with gang leader Jed (Calvin Bartlett). By the time the remaining three outlaws reached the desert saloon, she was a regular party animal with the rest of them. That just didn't make sense to me. Also, if you think about it (here I go again), wouldn't that have been the longest rendition of 'Oh, Susannah' ever played, seeing as how the pursuing Joshua got involved in a couple more scrapes before he made his appearance there.

As for the over all musical theme, I have to go against the naysayers. I thought the pulsing, rhythmic beat perfectly complemented Joshua's mission to bring the baddies to justice. It was relentless and a driving force propelling the story forward. If I had to find a main fault with the picture, it would be the inordinate amount of time spent riding and tracking the outlaws. If you patched it all together there would be at least twenty minutes of useless filler that didn't need to stretch this thing out to an hour and a half. As for Williamson himself, he could have used more charisma a la The Stranger or The Man With No Name. You knew he was going to get the job done, but he could have offered a few brilliant one-liners along the way.

I am my mothers son

[jeff_the_dj · 10/10 · 7 July 2009]

Wow, what a great film, I can't believe how some of the reviewers did not enjoy this movie!!!! Sure some of the acting wasn't that great. The music really set the tone on Williamson's character. He was quiet, calculative and ominous. He wasn't riding to play no games, nor have much conversation - he was riding to avenge his mothers death and the music and lack of dialogue from him showed that.

Some people are just to critical on films like this. This movie was not made to win no Oscars or any other awards. It was made to entertain, and in my opinion it really did do just that for me. For those whom tend to be to critical I say - LIGHTEN UP!!! Just stop looking for things to complain about with a movie like this and just enjoy it.

Great film.

A Complete Waste of Time!

[Scott-166 · 4 June 1999]

I really like western films but this one is absolutely insupportable. There's no story here, no acting, no directional touches. The cast is completely lost in a series of scenes that made no sense at all (like the showdown in the cave when Joshua killed the last outlaw). There's no dialogue here, too. Williamson develops a zombie-like performance all the time and that contributes to make this mess a complete waste of time and a great exercise of patience.