Shoot Out (1971)

Simply Perfect

Good movie but grossly overrated

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Ten years after Gregory Peck played America's ideal father in To Kill a Mockingbird, he thought it would be funny to take a role in which he inherits a little girl and doesn't know how to handle her. Well, I'm not sure if that's why he made Shoot Out, but it's pretty adorable to watch him as he adjusts with his new parenthood. The scenes he shares with Dawn Lyn are the best parts of the movie. He even affectionately calls her "Scout" during one scene—too cute! Robert F. Lyons plays a despicable bad guy, and while I understand why he had to be written that way, whenever he was on the screen, I was actually physically uncomfortable until the scene changed. After a while, I stopped cringing, put my trust in Gregory Peck, the just-released convict who's out for revenge, and let the chips fall where they may. The bad guys won't really get him, will they? You'll have to watch it to find out, and if you like westerns, I recommend you do. The father-daughter scenes are really cute, and there's a bit of romantic tension with Patricia Quinn to spice things up for Greg, who's a little worn around the edges but still looks good in a cowboy hat. And while there's a very evil villain, his scenes do keep you on the edge of your seat. I wasn't expecting to like Shoot Out as much as I did, so give it a try and see if you like it, too!

I have read the other reviews that talk about the director and the the similarities to other movies which are idiotic comparisons. This in no way resembles True Grit. The story line is different. The supporting actors were the worse actors I have ever seen and belong in movies that are below the B movie rating. Why they scream at each other when standing next to each other is idiotic. The ending was good but you had to go through a lot to finally get to the end. There were too many gaps of things that happened. It is a feel good movie if you like to see the villain die in the end.

Having served his sentence, bank robber Clay Lomax goes searching for the partner who shot him and left him to take the blame. He soon falls foul of three thugs who work for the now respectable rancher, following which he has a 6-year old girl landed on him by an ex-girlfriend, the girl's mother, who has died: the child may be his daughter.This 1970 western, made by the director and production team who had made John Wayne's True Grit, turned up on TV. I had never heard of it, so was interested to watch it. It had much of the look of True Grit, filmed on similar locations at the same time of year, and benefited from an unusual story blending together the quest for revenge with the unwitting and unwilling childcare element. This did rather place something of a strain on Clay's character, however - the mellowing as a decent and moral father figure didn't sit easily with the ex-jailbird bank robber bent on revenge. But Gregory Peck managed to embrace both aspects fairly well. Dawn Lyn as the child did well, and was considerably less annoying that Kim Darby was in True Grit a year earlier. Unfortunately, Robert F Lyons as chief psycho thug strayed heavily down the road to pantomime villainy and, at times, appeared to be channelling Jack Nicholson from several of his more histrionic early roles.This was an interesting, if not entirely successful, western.

I always thought Gregory Peck was a competent if wooden actor. He was good where he had to be stiff (Captain Hornblower, for example) but otherwise not one of my favorites. But in this film he shines, not so much that he was so good as much of the rest of the cast was so bad. The little girl even acted circles around much of the adults who were either chewing the scenery or acting in a daze. I had a lot more respect of Peck as a professional after seeing this film.Other than Peck and sometimes the little brat, the film lacked a lot. I don't remember the chief villain in it very well - I saw this when it first came out - but I vaguely recall that he too stood out.