A beautiful, brutal Western and a defining moment in American cinema, this seemingly straightforward tale of revenge is given enormous weight by its candid acknowledgment of the racism inherent in the country’s troubled history.
When a Comanche raider murders his brother’s family and kidnaps his niece, Ethan Edwards embarks on a tortuous five-year odyssey to kill both the killer and the girl, who he considers “tainted” by her abductor’s uncultured ways.
John Wayne gives a hulking, brutish performance as Edwards, as threatening and immovable as the extraordinary stone structures of Monument Valley, all of which makes his final epiphany as challenging as it is enormously affecting