10 Under-Appreciated Westerns To Watch While You Wait For Red Dead Redemption 2
6. Ride The High Country
Like with anything you take an interest in, there's levels of fandom. In terms of the Western, level 1 is probably your Dollars Trilogy, Django, and The Quick & The Dead - action fare that you can easily slip into. By level 2 you're possibly getting more into the John Wayne or Jimmy Stewart era. If you've hit a point where you've seen the main body of material by Joel McCrea or Randolph Scott, the stars of Ride The High Country, you're comfortably in level 3.
Ride The High Country isn't a 'level 3' type of film thanks in part to its simple plot and dynamic direction provided by a then up and coming Sam Peckinpah. Peckinpah, the man responsible for bloody classics such as The Wild Bunch is just finding his feet at this stage of his career but for Scott and McCrea, this is two men that know this is their swan song and want to go out on a high. For Scott, it truly was and marked the last time he would ever appear on film again.
The plot almost reads like a Red Dead Redemption mission itself, with aging former lawman Steve Judd (McCrea) hired to escort a gold shipment through treacherous area where men have already been killed. Enlisting the help of his old friend Gil Westrum (Scott) he may have a shot at making it but we seen discover that Westrum is no longer on the side on the angels and has eyes on the prize himself. Certainly a flick to check out and one that's a little easier to get a hold of due to Peckinpah's past works being easily released.