An Uncomfortable Mix of Old and New Hollywood

Just watched this for the first time in probably 30 years. As a kid, I enjoyed it immensely. Now, sorry to say, it dates badly. 1971 was a landmark year for groundbreaking movies like KLUTE, A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, STRAW DOGS, THE FRENCH CONNECTION and THE CONFORMIST, to name a few. There were also a smattering of films like BIG JAKE that uncomfortably mixed elements from "old" and "new" Hollywood.

The "new" elements in this would be, as the OP and previous posters have pointed out, the graphically-violent opening. The "old" would be the "humorous" fist-fights, John Wayne's dog that apparently understood English, and (the worst gaffe of all, in my opinion) people shot at point-blank range with double-barrel shotguns that don't shed a drop of blood! And let's not forget veteran (and very Caucasian) actor Bruce Cabot playing an Indian! Also, death was treated in a very light-hearted, slipshod manner. When someone was killed, even an important character, no one ever made reference to it, or shed a tear. This was especially glaring in the end, which is probably the weakest part of an already-spotty film.

If you're going to portray violence in a film, you have to be consistent, and this hand an uneasy mix of graphic and sanitized violence that, at least for this viewer, took me out of the movie completely. I, for one, also think that if you're going to portray violence in a film, it's the responsibility of the filmmakers to do so realistically: which means that it should make you wince, and look away, not "entertain" and/or titillate. The tone in BIG JAKE is all over the place: graphically violent one minute, slapstick humor the next, '70s gritty and '50s sanitized almost simultaneously. And what was with that made-for-TV-style opening about what was happening around the country in 1909? Those people and things were never referred to again.

I'm a huge fan of The Duke and Richard Boone is terrific here (as always), but this is one of Wayne's lesser efforts, I'm sorry to say. At least he finished on a high note a few years later with THE SHOOTIST being both one of his best as well as his swan song.