Continuing my Jeff Bridges Marathon (started by Thunderbolt & Lightfoot ), I pulled Bad Company off my my shelf. I had never seen it before, but bought it some years ago because (a) it was cheap, and (b) based on the filmography of writer/director Robert Benton. Bad Company was Benton's directorial debut after having co-scripted Bonnie & Clyde for Warren Beatty/Arthur Penn. Like most Westerns made in the 1970's, Bad Company takes a revisionist look at Western mythology and character archetypes, with Benton balancing this with odd humor and sudden violence.
The main characters are Civil War draft evaders, Jake (Jeff Bridges) and Drew (Barry Brown), who meet up and become a roving band of would-be outlaws. We often forget that a lot of outlaws like "Billy The Kid" were actual teenagers during their height of popularity. Likewise, Jake's (Bridges) gang is made up primarily of teens and early twentysomethings. The youngest looking close to twelve. All inexperienced, and the film holds these characters to that inexperience. The kids are kids. They like to act like they know how to survive, but they don't even know how to skin a rabbit. When attempting to rob a stagecoach, the gang hides and sends one of the boys to flag down the coach. He flags down the coach, and rides off with them leaving the boys bewildered. I don't think they knew what to do. A shocking piece of "Assault on Precient 13"-type violence, involving a pie and a farmer, comes out of nowhere. But it perfectly drives home reality to us and the characters.
This was a easy going film that I look forward to revisiting. The Gordon Willis photography is beautiful and naturally-based. Jeff Bridges is (always) good; this time playing the dopey leader of the gang. Brown is an actor I was previously unfamiliar with, but I look forward to seeing him in something else (I own an unwatched Daisy Miller DVD). Benton's The Late Show will also be making its way off my shelf in the near future.
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