Union Traitors, Confederate Allies
Rio Lobo is just another really great John Wayne movie that follows a “formula” that worked out so well for him in other movies. It has similarities to Rio Bravo, El Dorado, and Big Jake, and is also one of the John Wayne, Howard Hawks team-up movies. It’s another classy western tale with great acting and memorable lines.
Wayne stars as Colonel McNally, a Union officer in the Civil War who is overseeing the shipment of Union gold at the outset of the movie. His trusted comrade, Lt. Forsythe (Peter Jason), is on board the gold transport train with his men. A team of Confederate soldiers, lead by Capt. Pierre Cordona (Jorge Rivero) and including Sgt. Tuscarora Phillips (Mitchum), are determined to hijack the train, steal the gold, and get away before the Union realizes what happened.
In searching for the lost gold and the Confederates who took it, McNally gets captured for a short time before turning the tables on his captors. During these early scenes he speaks frankly with the Confederates and is primarily concerned with one thing: finding the Union men who are selling the secrets that enable the Confederates to execute these hijackings. Not willing to sell the Confederacy out, Cordona and Tuscarora remain prisoner until the War ends. At this time, McNally approaches them again about finding the Union traitors and the two are more apt to help now with the War in the past.
The three part ways after pooling their info but soon meet again in Texas. Things get really mixed up when Shasta Delaney (played by Jennifer O’Neill) gets into trouble with some deputies from Blackthorne, TX. McNally helps her out along with Cordona, and they unravel a deeper plot that ties the Union traitors to some corrupt lawmen in Rio Lobo. Tuscarora meets up with McNally, Cordona, and Shasta after the trio pick up Tuscarora’s father, known as Philips (Jack Elam), who is under attack from the same corrupt lawmen. The group is outnumbered and outgunned, but together they attempt to bring the traitors to justice and the corrupt lawmen, too.
Rio Lobo has a great script and acting. The cast of characters is diverse and very interesting; Elam’s character is hilarious and perfectly cast. O’Neill is gorgeous, and also turns in a great performance along with Rivero and Mitchum. Victor French, who plays one of the traitors, and Mike Henry, the corrupt lawmen, also do a great job. I thought Rio Lobo had a the right combination of action and comic relief (thanks to Elam primarily), but the drama between Cordona and Shasta slows things down a little bit in repeated viewings. By any account though, this is another highly watchable John Wayne movie, one that I’ve seen a dozen times now and will likely watch a dozen more times in years to come.
The Blu-ray
Just like with Big Jake, the Blu-ray release of Rio Lobo is straight-forward and somewhat disappointing. There are again several scenes where the image quality nose dives for brief periods. In other words, while about 95% of the film looks very good — crisp, bright, vibrant colors — there are those scenes which look really bad. I’m not sure why this is, but it’s definitely noticeable and it puts a damper on the overall release. I wouldn’t call it a deal breaker, but it is a sign that this release was probably rushed right along in time for Father’s Day.
The audio package is nice, although just like with the Big Jake Blu-ray, I would trade these numerous extra foreign language mono tracks and subtitles for just some kind of extra feature. The main audio track is English 5.1 DTS-HD and it does very well for itself, but the inclusion of numerous other languages is just unnecessary.
No extra features to speak of once again, which is a real shame for such a classic John Wayne movie. Not even a trailer in SD or anything of the sort is a letdown.
To the summary…