Howard Hawks was a remarkably versatile director who made classics in many genres, including screwball comedy (Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday), film noir (The Big Sleep), science fiction (The Thing) and westerns (Red River, Rio Bravo). His final film, Rio Lobo (1970), is no classic, but the Blu-ray release will be of interest to fans of John Wayne, who gives his usual stoic performance as a man of few words, most of them blunt, yet with a residue of regret buried deep under that rock-hard façade.
Filmed in better-than-life shades of Technicolor, Rio Lobo is notable for containing one of Hollywood's most elaborate Rube Goldberg capers—the highjacking of a Union gold shipment by Confederates involving greased railroad tracks and a swarm of angry hornets. But the Civil War is only the prelude. Afterward, Wayne teams up with his former foe, a Confederate officer of French-Mexican heritage (played by Jorge Rivero) to bring down a corrupt Texas sheriff and a greedy land baron. The plot is dragged down by a romp involving the darkly handsome Rivero and a headstrong, anachronistic woman—a twist better suited for an Elvis movie. And yet, the best passages were made with the taut economy Hawks had long mastered. The shoot-outs are rousing.
