Apache Paul Newman does not give a crap about this white man’s review.
Hombre is the story of a Paul Newman raised by Apaches, then adopted by the movie Stagecoach. Right down to the Hierarchy of Races (White>Mexican>Apache) established in the first ten minutes of the movie, this is the same movie. An eclectic group of travelers get on a stagecoach and ride off to an uncertain future. To be fair, the non-titular stagecoach is stolen part way through the movie, so it’s more like No Stagecoach from that point on, but that’s just picking nits. And we all know I only pick nits when they’ve achieved full ripeness for baking my famous nitpie.
The movie is called Hombre because nobody knows Paul Newman’s name. No wait, that’s not true. It’s John Russell. Everybody knows his name, except this one, unimportant, guy. Heck, he has three names, though they never tell us the other ones. Maybe Hombre is one of them? I don’t know. This is supposed to feed into the mystery of a man raised by Apaches, but as far as I can tell, all being raised by Apaches does is make you an asshole.
After Newman cuts his hair, he speaks in nothing but monosyllabic phrases that can be Google translated as “Screw off.” He studiously avoids doing anything, ever, because he, like, doesn’t care man. So he’s less like an Apache warrior and more like a high school senior. He’s an excellent shot with a gun, always knows what to do, and can survive in a desert with nothing but the glint in his deep blue eyes.
Naturally, he uses these superpowers to make a nice woman destitute, get an innocent man who tried to help him killed, let a woman be kidnapped, and leave six people to die in the desert. He presumably does this because white people were so mean to his Apache friends. So really the movie is all about the most aggressively passive-aggressive case of White Guilt ever. So that’s different from Stagecoach. Everything else is the same, so just watch Stagecoach instead. Or The Mummy. I hear that’s good.
Rating: Musty
Did I fast forward: No
Posted by dagrabbit 
