Bad Company (1972)

Directed by Robert Benton. Starring Jeff Bridges, Barry Brown, David Huddleston, John Savage, Damon Cofer, Jerry Houser, Joshua Hill Lewis, Jim Davis, Geoffrey Lewis, Raymond Guth, Ed Lauter, John Quade. [PG]

A revisionist Western that wears its counterculture influence more plainly than average. As the Civil War tears through the county, draft-dodging Brown heads West, joins a gang of two-bit thieves, and their opportunistic leader (Bridges) convinces them to live off the land and “play outlaw”. Has some of the judicious irony of another of the era’s de-mythologizing oaters (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), but far less of the warmth and sharp banter. Aided by Gordon Willis’ fine photography, debuting director Benton achieves a rustic splendor and moral ambivalence that calls to mind Malick as much as Peckinpah—to say nothing for Dick Richards’ The Culpepper Cattle Co. from earlier that same year—and some of the performances are disarming. Yet the tone is uneasy as it wavers between gritty realism and whimsical cuteness (including a low-key running gag centered on a gold watch that means more to the wayward antihero than apparently anyone not named Butch Coolidge), and the episodic narrative both resists personal involvement and contrives unlikely scenarios. The rumor that the film’s title inspired the name of the 70s rock band was debunked by singer Paul Rodgers in an interview.

63/100