Bad Company (1972)

During one of the recent free preview weekends, I had a chance to record the movie Bad Company. It's going to be on again, tomorrow afternoon at 2:55 PM on Epix2. (Don't worry if you don't have the Epix package; the movie is on DVD last I checked.)

the year is 1863, which of course means that the Civil War is raging in the US. Both sides need more soldiers, and a group of Union soldiers is going around southern Ohio shanghaiing people who have been drafted but not shown up to serve. This is coming to the Dixon family, as second son Drew (Barry Brown) has been drafted. This, even though their eldest son already died in the war effort. The whole family doesn't want Drew to go off to fight, so they're hiding him from the army.

Drew's plan is to go off to Nevada, soon to become a state, to go mine for silver. Of course, that's going to be difficult, in part because the military might still be looking for him, but more because crossing the west is still an arduous journey what with no transcontinental railroad. The last state before the frontier is Missouri (Kansas and Nebraska wouldn't become states until after the war), so Drew makes his way there to find a wagon train.

In Missouri, he meets Jake (Jeff Bridges), who also has a past and is making his way west because, well, reasons that are never quite explained. Jake befriends the naïve Drew, but it is of course a ruse. Drew has money on him, and Jake could use it because he's a sort of leader of a gang of disaffected young men who are aimlessly roaming around the Kansas Territory. Drew eventually runs into Jake again, and Jake tells Drew he doesn't have much choice but to join the gang, since the army will arrest him if he tries to join a wagon train.

Drew finds that life out west isn't the romantic adventure he and his family dreamed of, although he still tries to cling to his morals. That's not going to be easy, considering how tough times make tough men. There's a failed settler couple returning from the west; an utter lack of food; and other gangs as well. And Jake is still trying to get at Drew's money.

Meanwhile, the real authorities are also on the trail of the gang, which is in the process of breaking up anyway as hunger turns on the various members. Dumb Drew still thinks Jake is his friend, however, until things go one step too far....

Bad Company is one of those westerns which came about after the disintegration of the Production Code enabled filmmakers to take a different look at the genre, with cynicism and moral ambiguity instead of the more sharply-drawn good and bad guys, and a lot less optimism than many of the earlier westerns. Bad Company comes up with a good idea, but unfortunately, it doesn't always quite work. I found the movie wandered around a bit too much, not quite coming to a fully fleshed-out plot with a good working ending. It tries to mix comedy into the proceedings, and while this works at times, it's not always successful either.

In short, I found myself with a maddening mix of something that should have been better than it turns out being, but also a film that will probably appeal to people who like 1970s westerns. To be fair, the 70s westerns have always been hit or miss for me.