Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The Western is not my favourite genre, but when I run across one made with the skill and genius of Howard Hawks, I just sit back and let the story unfold. Two and one-half hours may be excessive for some, but the story really needs to be told without time constraints (Budd Boetticher would have done it in little more than an hour, and it would have been poorer for that). I liked the way Hawks kept the story within the confines of the town, not bothering to soak up the magnificent scenery so beloved of Ford and Mann.Russell Harlan's fine camera-work serves to increase the tension throughout (Harlan did To Kill a Mockingbird, Witness for the Prosecution and many more fine pictures). The performances are excellent. Many have said Dean Martin has never been better--he outdoes himself here, makes me reflect on how good he was in Some Came Running. Angie Dickinson gives a tremendous performance as Feathers; she seems assured for much of the time, yet there is an underlying insecurity. We keep waiting for her to get on the stagecoach and she never does. Walter Brennan gives a lovely impression of Dogberry from Much Ado About Nothing--endearing confusion. John Wayne is still handsome at 52, and carries himself with that assurance we knew so well. His acting skills were never the point. If Ricky Nelson is hardly a great actor, he is a capable one. I liked the way he says "I speak English, sheriff" as a form of introduction to Chance.

Good film but way too long. I started getting really bored with the romance part of the movie -- it was an annoying interruption of great scenes & the plot and really didn't add much to it other than that --- annoyance. Subtract a couple of the parrying between Wayne & Dickinson's characters and the movie would have flowed better and not dragged on so much! Any viewer can see where the argumentative stuff between the two will lead to. Yawn. Ricky Nelson & Dean Martin clearly cast to show off their warbling capabilities...Martin was great, but missing some of his fire & panache from previous films. Nelson -- well, he's just sorta pretty to look at of course. Walter Brennan returns in a familiar casting role -- cantankerous, backtalking, usual role -- so I found that regrettably boring as well, since Brennan's range of acting far outreaches that particular typecasting. So, yeah. A typical Western that is quite dim in comparison to High Noon's plot.

The name John Wayne immediately conjures up images of the wild west much like the name Alfred Hitchcock conjures notions of suspense. Starting on the silver screen at nineteen, John Wayne still holds the American record for the most lead roles (142) in a career spanning into the seventies. Plainspoken, strong-willed and more than willing to take a tumble or two, John Wayne's name still stands the test of time; a name ubiquitous even today.Rio Bravo begins in near total silence. Local sheriff and former gunslinger the Dude (Martin) tries to pay for a drink at the local watering hole. Already drunk and out of money, local miscreant Joe Burdette tries to roughs him up. In the chaos Marshall John T. Chance (Wayne) tries to intervene but is punched in the jaw by the Dude who's trying to save face. A man is killed and Joe is arrested by the sore Chance and the still drunk Dude. In order to bring Joe to justice, Chance must team up with the Dude, Colorado Ryan (Nelson), a young gunslinger; local codger Stumpy (Brennan), and a travelling gambler named Feathers (Dickinson). In the shadows lurks Joe's older brother Nathan (Russell) who comes to town with a posse set on freeing his brother and killing anyone who tries to stop them.Much like Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" and On the Waterfront (1954), The story of Rio Bravo was written as a response to High Noon (1952). Famed for being the western for people who hate westerns, High Noon is regarded as an allegory to Hollywood's reaction to the House Un-American Activities Committee's red- baiting. Wayne at the time, was president of the Motion Picture Alliance and set out to make a counterpoint to Gary Cooper's Marshal Kane. Sheriff Chance doesn't ask for help from the townsfolk despite overwhelming odds. In-fact at several points he refuses help from anyone he doesn't feel would be useful in a fight. He's practical and duty-bound as opposed to wry and moralistic.Each important player, comes into the film with something to prove to the world. Dean Martin's career as a nightclub crooner was on the wane and while his third billing in The Young Lions (1958) was well received, nothing thus far compared to his partnership with Jerry Lewis. Looking to become a "serious" actor, Martin ended the partnership tumultuously in 1956. Meanwhile the eighteen-year-old Ricky Nelson was hot off the billboard charts and was given the role of Colorado only after Elvis Presley dropped out. Ricky symbolized the coming era of rock & roll to some of the old timers; an attitude that was not lost on him when Wayne and Martin threw him in a pile of steer manure on-set as a "right of passage". Then there was The Duke, who had not had a surefire hit since Hondo (1953). He dabbled in a few war films since then as well as a few historically misguided films, The Conqueror (1956) being the most loathsome. He also made what's widely considered his greatest accomplishment The Searchers (1956), a film not well received during its time but has since been ranked as one of the best westerns ever.Director Howard Hawks was also trying to get out of a downward spiral since his sword-and-sandal epic Land of the Pharaohs (1955) epically tanked at the box office. The famed studio director, dubbed The Silver Fox for managing to ferret his way into every Hollywood genre met his Waterloo. After a few years living in Europe, Hawks was ready to return to the director's chair and decided on Rio Bravo's beautiful script as his comeback. To hedge his bets Hawk's had his sets built 7/8ths to scale to make the actors and characters appear larger than life; not that the 6'3'' Wayne ever needed help with that.At two hours and twenty one minutes, Rio Bravo feels much more episodic than El Dorado (1966) or Rio Lobo (1970) (two films with identical conceits, said to be indirect remakes). The story also feels stronger, grittier and more universal. Those not intimidated by the film's near-mythic status and are itching to see multiple talents reaching for redemption, you'd do well to watch Rio Bravo.

. . . this three-hour snooze-fest (or chick flick) is no HIGH NOON. Which is not a surprise, since nearly all the cast and crew involved here in RIO BRAVO were REAL CRAVO witch-hunting bullies or their cowardly craven enablers, and NOT right-thinking Americans such as Gary Cooper's U.S. Constitution-loving really brave sheriff in HIGH NOON. John Wayne's RIO BRAVO character is once again named "John," probably because "Il Duce" had a few too many grid-iron concussions at Southern Cal. This gave him more trouble remembering to answer to a third name (layered on top of his childhood handle "Marion" and his studio flunky tag "John") than any other actor in cinema history. Why else are there nearly 100 movie credits in Mr. Wayne's IMDb filmography where his characters are named either "John" or "Hey, you!"? Though "Feathers" (teenager Angie Dickinson) parrots teen Lauren Bacall after kissing John a second time on-screen here ("It's better when TWO people do it"), RIO BRAVO cannot even rise to the level of second-rate Bogart, such as the lame TO HAVE AND HAVE NOT flick in which director Howard Hawks goes on his scavenger's hunt. (And Ms. Dickinson was too sharp to follow Ms. Bacall's Real Life lead in breaking up a Real Life marriage and saddling herself with a geezer for the rest of his Real Life, despite Mr. Hawks attempts to play a Real Life Cupid again.) John, as "John," references THE ALAMO here, a mendacious vanity project then in the planning stages that would temporarily bankrupt Il Duce a few years after RIO BRAVO was released. When talking about RIO BRAVO composer Dimitri Tiomkin's fake version of the Mexican Army's "No quarter" Deguello dirge foreshadowing the eventual fate of Texas Race War Terrorists Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, William Travis, and their ilk, the RIO BRAVO characters never explain that the reason for the heroic Mexican Freedom Fighters taking such an understandable dislike to the self-proclaimed "Texicans" was that the latter bunch of lazy racists were Hell-bent upon Re-enslaving all of the Free Black People of Mexico's Texas Province!