Peter Fonda (1940–2019)

Two stoners ride motorcycles.

0/4 (Terrible).

This movie is so bad, it made me angry at them for making it. The next morning, I remembered I watched it, and I got upset again. I didn't know a person could feel so strongly about a bad movie's badness.

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entertainment, fonda, peter, movies, actors

This is not only an overlooked western, but a sorely overlooked piece of filmmaking, beautifully shot by Vilmos Zsigmond (who uses some of the slowest dissolves anywhere in cinema) and directed by Peter Fonda, who seemed bent on capturing an authentic period flavor often missing from westerns of any time at all. His eye for detail and his refusal to insert too much of it are impressive for a young director. That is, the visual authenticity, like the acting performances and dialogue, work by show more way of understatement. This is a very understated film. Ultimately, it is a sort of 'buddy' film about the deep friendship between two characters played by Fonda and Warren Oates. It also has in common with (a much inferior sleeper) EASY RIDER the tragic, "backward" movement from West to East, which goes against the "natural" flow of American history and which ends in death here (as in the earlier film) when the "hired hand" of the title takes on a sadly ironic new meaning. Larry Hagman even gives a good performance here in an uncredited role as a town sheriff, caught in an awkward spot when peace in the community demands he ask Oates to leave his jurisdiction. The off-beat comedian and actor Severn Darden (memorable from THE PRESIDENT'S ANALYST, 1966) appears here in an uncharacteristic role as a malignant villain. Bruce Langhorne's music is among the most haunting anywhere in film. It will stay with you. This film is a work of art where most westerns were little more than loud, mass-market entertainments. The understated THE HIRED HAND will probably not satisfy western fans looking for action and violence in the Wayne or Eastwood mold. It is closer in feel to, say, HEARTLAND, the highly realistic drama of frontier struggle. Unfortunately THE HIRED HAND is, alas, now difficult to see. show less