The Tame West

By Frank Rich

COMES A HORSEMAN Directed by Alan J. Pakula Screenplay by Dennis Lynton Clark

A lot of talented people have worked very hard on Comes a Horseman. They may have worked a bit too hard. A liberal-minded western set in 1940s Montana, the film has been so carefully thought out that it seems cut and dried. There are fine performances, picturesque settings and noble sentiments on display, but there are no emotional or intellectual mysteries to hook the audience's imagination. Every level of the movie's meaning can be found right on its surface. Since that surface is only rarely bestirred by action or drama, Comes a Horseman ultimately comes to nothing.

The movie is not without curiosity value, however, for some of Hollywood's brightest figures have tried to whip it int shape The stars are Jane Fonda, James Caan and Jason Robards. The director is Alan J. Pakula (Klute, The Parallax View, All the President's Men), a major cinematic stylist who works equally well with actors and ideas. Cinematographer Gordon Willis (The Godfather, Interiors), though overly enraptured with the poetic uses of shadows, is one of the top craftsmen in American movies. There's only one wild card in this impressive pack: first-time Screenwriter Dennis Lynton Clark. His script is dry, but that does not absolve his colleagues from the responsibility of juicing it up.

Clark's story is a hybrid of The Rainmaker and the collected works of Larry McMurtry (Hud. The Last Picture Show). He tells of two antagonistic small-time ranchers, a tomboy spinster (Fonda) and a good-natured World War II veteran (Caan), who reluctantly pool their resources to battle a takeover by an expansionist landowner (Robards). The villain, meanwhile, has problems of his own-an oil-company executive (George Grizzard) wants to plunder the cattle fields for crude. It is not difficult to guess what follows. Like every other so-called modern western, this one features a trusty old ranch hand (nicely played by Rich ard Farnsworth) who dies to symbolize the passing of the Old West. Like every old-fashioned western, Horseman slowly but surely sends its taciturn heroine into the macho hero's arms. Clark's climax, a plain old Shootout, is surprising only because it is capped by an optimistic denouement that contradicts everything that has come before.

Since Pakula's recent films have dealt with little guys battling huge conspiracies of money and power, it is easy to see why he was drawn to Clark's script. What is missing here is the director's usual skill at transforming abstract evil into a palpable and frightening force. Perhaps Pakula has been lulled by Horseman's bucolic landscapes, because his characteristic tension is missing here. In this director's best movies, he arouses terror and paranoia by making it impossible to separate heroes from villains until the end. This time around the cast might as well wear white and black hats.

At the technical level, there is nothing in Comes a Horseman to be embarrassed about: Pakula seems incapable of visual sloppiness or vulgarity. He has also coaxed a performance from Fonda that is superior to her rather saintly appearances in Julia and Coming Home. Her face as weatherbeaten as her dad's in The Grapes of Wrath, this beautiful woman manages to capture the essence of frontier toughness in the film's first half. When she finally melts for a man, Fonda's blushing radiance almost melts a movie that has long since congealed. -- Frank Rich

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