Film Review: Tom Horn (1980)

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(source: tmdb.org)

The story of the Old West had a happy ending, at least for the United States, white settlers and Hollywood, which would milk the last drop of its mythology. As in most such stories, the ending wasn’t happy for all, and one of those unfortunates is the titular protagonist of Tom Horn, a 1980 film directed by William Wiard.

The plot is based on the posthumously published memoirs of Tom Horn (played by Steve McQueen), a larger-than-life historical figure who served as a civilian scout for the US Cavalry, lawman, cowboy, rancher, Pinkerton detective and volunteer during the Spanish-American War, but who is best known for taking part in the surrender of the famous Apache chief Geronimo. When the film begins in 1903, those glory days seem to belong to the distant past and the Old West is being replaced by the New West, a place with fewer and fewer opportunities for people who like open spaces and simple solutions to certain social problems. One of those rare opportunities is in Wyoming, where rich landowners are facing seemingly unstoppable hordes of cattle thieves. John Coble (played by Richard Farnsworth), one of the ranchers, offers a solution to that problem to fellow members of the cattle owners’ association. Tom Horn is hired, nominally as a ranch hand, but he actually works as a “stock detective” and begins to track and identify cattle thieves before warning them to stop their activities. Some cattle thieves take Horn and his reputation seriously, while those who don’t are quickly eliminated thanks to Horn’s deadly skill with a rifle. Horn proves to be efficient, but also a little too enthusiastic in his work, and the resulting bloodbath makes his employers squeamish and concerned about negative publicity. After a 14-year-old boy is killed, Horn is conveniently accused of murder and arrested, with the outcome of the trial all but guaranteed thanks to Horn being tricked into admitting the deed by the opportunistic and politically ambitious U.S. Marshal Joe Belle (played by Billy Green Bush).

This film originated in a screenplay originally written by William Goldman and partly inspired by his historical research for the popular 1969 western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. With the plot being set at the end of the Old West era and a protagonist who can’t adapt to the new ways, Tom Horn, if made with a combination of nostalgia and a slightly revisionist approach, could have been a western classic. Unfortunately, this film was made too late, at a time when audiences had finally begun to fall out of love with the genre, and production problems (including those that made Goldman abandon the project and use his script as the basis for the 1979 television biopic Mr. Horn) didn’t help either. Some of the problems were caused by McQueen, once a great Hollywood star who picked this project to end his retirement; his eccentric behaviour on the set led to five directors being changed before television veteran Wiard was nominally credited, with McQueen rumoured to have actually directed the film himself. As an actor, McQueen actually does a more than decent job, clearly displaying his age and portraying the titular character as tired and fatalistic. This isn’t that surprising, because McQueen was actually terminally ill with lung cancer during the production. The rest of the cast is more than solid and, in many ways, keeps this film together, especially Farnsworth and western veteran Slim Pickens in the role of Sheriff Sam Creedmore, a man who has the unenviable task of sending his friend to the gallows. On the other hand, Linda Evans seems miscast in the role of Horn’s obligatory love interest Glendolene Kimmel (apparently based on a real character) and the romantic subplot is mishandled with the poor and confusing use of flashbacks in the second part. Tom Horn became McQueen’s penultimate film and it could easily have been the ultimate swan song for the western, if not for Heaven’s Gate, which handled similar subjects only to fail much more spectacularly.

RATING: 5/10 (++)