Superb film.
Will Penny is an absolutely superb film. I find no flaws in it. A story about rough men and hard times, its plot and characters stand on their own merits, not the cowboy setting. The scenery is perfect; the great west during a harsh winter after a long cattle drive. We feel like we are there.The initial pace of the screenplay is slow and plodding. But this is intentional. It gives us a feel for the dreariness of a common cowboy's bleak life in the late 19th Century. Later the pace picks up.
Charlton Heston is convincing as a tired, aging, wrangler who really doesn't have much to show for his life. Joan Hackett is just plain enough looking to be real but attractive enough to become the love interest. A great actress, she passed away prematurely.
Donald Pleasence and Bruce Dern are frighteningly convincing as a homicidal religious zealot and his psychopathic son. They personify the cults of violent people that occupy the back recesses of society and only come out to work evil on the rest of us. These two are very scary.
Heston and Hackett's love is believable and so is the gun play. Yet there is no gratuitous sex or violence.
Will Penny is well produced and thoroughly entertaining.
score 10/10
eaglejet98 16 November 2003
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0105242/34927
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