The Hi-Lo Country

Get back to the laundrette, Stephen Frears -- the wide-open spaces of the American West have gone to your head. An adaptation of the 1961 Max Evans novel, The Hi-Lo Country is set in post-World War II New Mexico and embraces the same themes of male-bonding, romantic rivalry, economic change, and the death of the cowboy tradition that Hud and Giant did. That it does so with the flamboyantly silly histrionics but none of the panache of a Duel in the Sun is only part of the problem.

Young Pete Calder (a callow Billy Crudup, whose voiceover narrative aches with cliché) finds a pal in neighboring rancher Big Boy Matson (Woody Harrelson, enjoying his hairpiece), a brawling bear of overblown appetites, aggression, and boastful loyalty. The war intervenes, and afterward (four years of combat seems only to have made them more superficial) the two return to a Hi-Lo Country a-boil with opportunity (beef prices are up), most of which is gobbled up by ruthless landowner Jim Ed Love (Sam Elliott, in the only performance with iconic grit). The young men resist selling out, and Big Boy gets one up on the bad guys by squiring the wife of Love's foreman. But Mona (a phlegmatic Patricia Arquette) proves a femme fatale to the boys' bond -- Pete has the hots for her too -- and suddenly their vaguely homoerotic lifestyle of drinkin', fightin', and drivin' cattle on the lonely trail seems headed for a last round-up.

A bogus subplot about an envious brother saves the film from utter misogyny, but nothing will help its mawkishness, listless narrative, and absurdity. No, they don't make men like that anymore, or directors like Sam Peckinpah, who originally wanted to make the picture years ago. Maybe he could have elevated The Hi-Lo Country to something like the grandeur of its setting.

-- Peter Keough