Junior Bonner (1972)

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

Junior Bonner is a left turn for director Sam Peckinpah and a really fantastic and criminally underated film. This is a character study of an aging rodeo cowboy who returns home and the dynamics and relationship that he has with his family. Steve McQueen is great as Junior Bonner and his presence is immense, he conveys a lot of emotion with his facial expressions and says little. While this is a drama, it is very much a western, but without the gunplay. The film is very gritty, but beautifully photographed . This plays out in a very real, natural and honest manner. Junior Bonner is a very good film and is very solid and unpretentious entertainment.

Returning home after several years to compete locally, a rodeo star has to contend with the changes that his family have undergone during his time away, having never kept in correspondence with them. As one might deduce from such a plot description, 'Junior Bonner' is far removed from the violent and savage films that director Sam Peckinpah made his name with. His trademark slow motion shots are still in full swing, and there is some typically creative editing, but this is a very different sort of Peckinpah film, though not necessarily the better for it. Robert Preston is engaging as the protagonist's father, full of childish dreams of getting rich quick, and he shares some tender moments with Ida Lupino, cast as his ex-wife, however, the family drama is never terribly engaging here and the muted nature of the violence is odd (at one point, the protagonist pushes his brother through a glass window, but he barely seems hurt afterwards). The best aspect of the film is probably the rodeo events wherein Peckinpah's use slow motion and insertion of archive footage renders the events very intense. The non-rodeo scenes really pale by comparison though and when one considers that Peckinpah and Steven McQueen also collaborated on 'The Getaway' in the same year, the different in quality, style and story between the two holds greater interest than the question of whether or not McQueen will succeed in his rodeo challenge here. Western buffs may get quite a bit out of 'Junior Bonner', but this is definitely a film for which one's mileage will vary.

This is a really odd film directed by Sam Peckinpah. While there is an almost cult-like aura about him by his fans, this film may upset many of the "Peckinpah-sters" who are expecting the usual Peckinpah style. In essence, the violence is practically gone--no one is killed in the film and the amount of blood shed is very little--though there are a few of the trademark slow-motion shots. In addition, the film is set in the West, somewhat of an obsession for Peckinpah, but in the modern age.The story is about an aging rodeo star whose better days are far behind. Now he's broke and coming back to visit his home town. The narrative is far from traditional, as not a whole lot really occurs in the film--instead it's like a slice out of the life of the leading man (Steve McQueen) during this small time period of just a few days. Instead, you learn about his rather dysfunctional family--his father (who was also a rodeo star long ago) who STILL needs to grow up, his greedy brother and his long-suffering (and a bit stupid) mother. None of these characters are particularly likable and it's all a bit sad, though it also does seem rather true-life as well. The characters, though horribly flawed, are much more real than you'd find in other films. Too bad, however, that they never do much of anything.Overall, a very slow-moving film that was obviously a labor of love for the director but which probably won't appeal to most people. Yes, it's a realistic portrait of a strange piece of Americana, but many just won't find much reason to see it--not that it's bad, mind you, it just never rises above the level of "meh...". Still, not a bad little film.

Prescott AZ is much liked by filmmakers because our near-perfect weather and multiple architectural styles (Old West, Art Deco West, Modern Southwest, New England) lend themselves to reliable locale shooting. The famous lightning-strikes-clocktower scene from "Back to the Future" was filmed at our courthouse square. Tom Mix owned a ranch here and filmed more than a hundred silent Westerns here. But, to my knowledge, "Junior Bonner" is the only movie made with Prescott as the film's identified locus.The eponymous Junior (Steve McQueen) is an over-the-hill rodeo star returning to his hometown for Prescott's annual Frontier Days Rodeo (a real event here--the oldest professional rodeo in the US). He's also catching up with his family: rapscallion father Ace (Robert Preston), prey to get-rich-quick mining schemes; long suffering mother Elvira (Ida Lupino); and unscrupulous brother Curly (Joe Don Baker), who bought his father's last acreage cheap to build a trailer park while Ace blew the money in Nevada. Junior has an agenda other than to make some money at the rodeo: he wants another chance to ride a particularly nasty bull that threw and injured him in an earlier rodeo.This is yet another example of how excellent acting hoists a nothing movie. McQueen turns in a patented laconic but credible performance, while Preston, Lupino and Baker are just right for their roles. The inimitable Ben Johnson has a small role as a rodeo official. Johnson enhanced every film he was in, and this is no exception. It's hard to believe that Sam Peckinpah had the sentiment in him to make the feel-good ending, but he did."Junior Bonner" is liberally sprinkled with filmings of our rodeo and our Fourth of July parade, a 10,000-calorie slice of Americana which (to paraphrase Shakespeare) is "a hoot--a very palpable hoot." Another big chunk is filmed at the Palace Bar and Restaurant on Whiskey Row, which bills itself as "America's Oldest Continuously Operating Saloon." I enjoyed seeing what my hometown looked like 36 years ago. But other than that, there's not much to commend it.