Good idea lost in the noise

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

JUNIOR BONNER marks a change of pace for western director Sam Peckinpah; it's one of the few films he made suitable for family viewing. Steve McQueen stars as an ageing rodeo rider who returns home to once more compete on the circuit, taking time to romance a beautiful woman and falling out with his family members in the meantime. The only real way you can tell this is a Peckinpah movie is in the lovingly-captured slow-motion bull-riding scenes. The rest is rather middling, as it turns out; McQueen is a good actor, there's no denying that, but his character doesn't have much to do here. This is primarily a slice of life drama rather than anything else, and other than a few volatile moments featuring the reliable Joe Don Baker, little of note occurs.

Penned by then-neophyte screenwriter Jeb Rosebrook and shot by Sam Peckinpah's best cinematographer, Lucien Ballard, on location in Prescott, Arizona, 'Junior Bonner' stars Steve McQueen in the title role as an aging, battered bull rider returning to his hometown to participate in Prescott's 4th of July "Frontier Days." (As the world's oldest rodeo, founded in 1888, Prescott's annual event epitomizes the mythic cowboy culture of the Old West). Expecting to find his family unchanged after many years, J.R. "Junior" Bonner discovers that his father, Ace (Robert Preston)—a former rodeo star gone to seed—and mother Elvira (Ida Lupino) have since separated and that his younger brother Curly (Joe Don Baker) has become a venal real estate tycoon selling off parcels of the family land holdings for a fast buck. A poignant look at the dissolution of the modern American family, Junior Bonner is also obviously another installment in Sam Peckinpah's long string of elegiac movies (e.g., 'Ride the High Country'; 'The Wild Bunch'; 'The Ballad of Cable Hogue') about the passing of a freer, tougher, and more independent America, superseded by domesticated, money-grubbing conformists. Concomitant with the demise of rugged individualism is the deterioration of the kind of stoical, circumspect, and physically courageous masculinity that Peckinpah and McQueen held dear. To recuperate said masculinity, Junior Bonner undertakes to ride "Sunshine," a fearsome bull he has never been able to master for the requisite eight seconds in order to achieve at least a symbolic kind of redemption for himself and all his ilk—and to win sufficient prize money to send his father to Australia to prospect for gold (a gesture toward a new frontier). Good natured by Peckinpah standards, 'Junior Bonner' is one of his finest and most underrated films and Steve McQueen's wry, understated rendition of Junior Bonner ranks among his best performances. The film also features the great character actors Ben Johnson and Dub Taylor, Barbara Leigh as Charmagne, Bonner's enigmatic love interest, and Peckinpah and two of his children in cameos. Similar in many ways to Cliff Robertson's rodeo movie, 'J.W. Coop', 'Junior Bonner' provides a more upbeat ending. VHS (1998) and DVD (1999).

This is an offbeat sort of movie for Sam Peckinpah, master of celluloid violence. The plot is quite minimal - broken family trying to reconnect, wandering dad, a mother with a soft spot for her wayward husband, and 2 sons - one on the make and the other down and out,. Nothing really dramatic happens here, and the dialogue is spare, but somehow you come to care about the characters. The performances are wonderful all around, especially from the venerable Robert Preston. It is clear that the movie intends to give us a good look at what rodeos are all about, although perhaps it's more of a look than we want (I tended to fast forward through the rodeo scenes). But the movie is worth watching just for the sake of what is probably the most brilliantly hilarious version of a saloon brawl ever filmed. It's worth a look.

"I made a film where nobody got shot and nobody went to see it." - Sam Peckinpah Steve McQueen plays Junior "JR" Bonner, a rodeo circuit cowboy who has returned to his home-town of Prescott Arizona for its Fourth of July Frontier Day celebrations. Junior, traumatically mauled by a bull months earlier, plans on riding and taming "Sunshine", the meanest bull in town. It's an act of affirmation, Junior hoping to hang onto a Western ethos which he knows to be on its way out. Meanwhile, Junior's younger brother Curly bulldozes houses and tends to his growing mobile home enterprise. Always the opportunist, Curly hopes to commoditize Junior's authenticity. "You're as genuine as a sunrise," he says, hoping to turn his brother into a walking mascot. Anything to deliver the "Western" experience to paying customers.And so as the film progresses, director Sam Peckinpah captures the twilight of the West. Tractors replace guns, trucks replace horses, rootless mobile homes consume fixed houses, the Western experience is turned into plastic, and expansive scrub-lands shrink into strip malls and housing estates. Desperate for wilderness, Junior's father thus jumps ship and heads off to the badlands of Australia. He hears there's gold there.Thematically the film covers nothing especially new (see "Sitting Bull's History Lesson" and "Lonely Are The Brave" instead), but it captures the timbre of both the rodeo circuit and of lonely men well past their prime. Peckinpah utilises his trademark slow-motion shots and non-linear editing to poor effect.Incidentally, McQueen loved to play roles which portrayed him as a "real man" and "rugged outdoors type". Ironically, most of his iconic, famously dangerous scenes ("Bonner", "The Great Escape" etc) make heavy use of stunt doubles.7.5/10 – Worth one viewing.