Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Pretty Good

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Yes westerns are old-fashioned now but some of the old ones like this one are still good and pleasant to watch. This movie combines in a very realistic way suspense, action, sentiment and humour. Howard Hawks has done very good movies between 1926 and 1970 not all of them westerns. This movie has great actors like John Wayne (one of Hawks' favourites) and Dean Martin who perform great roles here. This is the simple story of a small town in Texas where a sheriff (John Wayne) has two assistants, one a drunkard (Dean Martin) and the other an old crippled man. He's got to face a powerful gang that is trying to free one of its members who was arrested for murder by the sheriff. The action develops itself in several episodes many of them violent but acceptable in terms of psychological and visual reality. A good film of its kind.

Watching films such as this you can't help but think just how far the quality of films have fallen from what they once were. Despite having a very simple premise, (A Sheriff, a drunk and cripple defending a town against a bunch of bad guys) this movie is incredibly well put together. The story is simple but clever with a classic twist. The characters are colorful and multifaceted, they are almost your typical heroes but with some unique flaws that give them a more realistic edge. The acting is on point, with John Wayne and Dean Martin at their best. The pace of the movie is superb with a great build up to the final all out gun battle climax. This is all wrapped up with a beautiful movie score. I recommend anyone who enjoys it to check out the series "Godless" to see a modern day equivalent with realistic female characters. There are many elements in it that remind me of this movie.

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.

John Wayne detested HIGH NOON and Howard Hawks thought even less of it, the sight of Sheriff Gary Cooper humbling himself by asking cowardly townspeople for help against a vicious outlaw seems to have deeply offended their concept of who and what constituted a hero in a Hollywood western. So like good Americans, they didn't just bitch and complain, they made their own movie and told the story their way, the result being RIO BRAVO, and the big winners were us movie buffs and western fanatics.The plot of RIO BRAVO is simplicity itself: Sheriff John T. Chance locks up brutal outlaw Joe Burdette (Claude Akins) on a murder charge and awaits the arrival of the Marshall in a few days. Nathan Burdette (John Russell), Joe' wealthy rancher brother, hires a gang of killers with the intention of freeing his brother, at the same time making sure the good citizens of Rio Bravo get the message that if they try to come to Chance's aid, it won't be pretty. Wayne's John T. Chance is a true professional, who does not bemoan his fate or beg for help, he stands for the rule of law and won't be intimidated, going about his job calmly and without without any outward fear. But the script (co-authored by Leigh Brackett) makes it very clear that as good as John T Chance. is, he does need help in this tight spot and gets from a most unlikely group: Walter Brennan's crippled old deputy, Stumpy; Ricky Nelson's young gunfighter, Colorado; Angie Dickinson's dance hall girl, Feathers; Pedro Gonzales Gonzales's hotel operator, Carlos; and most significantly, from Chance's alcoholic deputy, Dude, played by Dean Martin in what is surely his finest hour. This typical rag tag band of misfits come together for a common good, and prevail over the villains by being loyal to each other and exhibiting competence in a crisis, thus earning the respect of Chance and the esteem of the others. Courage is defined not as the absence of fear, but as the willingness to confront danger in spite of it. All of these are some of Hawks's favorite themes, thus making RIO BRAVO intensely personal while at the same time, deliberately commercial. There are great touches of humor and lots of great dialog, while each scene appears to be laid out with great care, especially the famous wordless opening in a saloon; the positioning of the actors, the laying out of the sets (mostly the dusty streets, the town's hotel and the jail) appear to have been done with an eye that knew how to tell a story visually. Few reviewers note how well the night time scenes are done.John T. Chance is probably the finest realization of a John Wayne hero in any film, a compliment from Chance is the highest honor a man could receive, and I think Wayne smiles more in this movie than any other, often at the antics of Brennan, in the kind of role he played better than any other. Martin's performance as Dude, a role originally offered to Montgomery Clift (who worked with Wayne, Brennan, and Hawks in RED RIVER), is a revelation; nothing much tops the scene where he pours the whiskey back in the bottle when the band starts to play the "cutthroat" song, which Santa Anna used in an attempt to frighten the defenders of the Alamo. Angie Dickinson's Feathers (with her stunning legs on display) has to give the sexiest performance of any of Wayne's leading ladies, we even get inside her bedroom, a rarity for westerns at the time. Many think Ricky Nelson was out of his depth in this movie and was cast only for box office appeal, but I think he more than holds his own. RIO BRAVO is the last pairing of old pals and frequent co-stars Wayne and Ward Bond.At two and a half hours, RIO BRAVO moves along very leisurely by modern standards; maybe Hawks should have copied HIGH NOON's tight pacing.In the end, I think HIGH NOON told us much about contemporary America and the degradation and corruption of civilization; while in RIO BRAVO, Wayne and Hawks give us the heroic myth of the Old West at its finest. Both films are equally valid in what they say and are enduring classics in their own right. Want to see how relevant RIO BRAVO is, go see GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY.