SERIOUSLY. This is what the crap Hollywood still puts out?

Good start, but then it gets ruined

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Wayne stars an upright cattle rancher , Wil Andersen ; when his cattle drivers abandon him for the gold fields , he is forced to hire 11 school boys (Sean Kelly , Clay O'Brien , A. Martínez , Robert Carradine film debut , among others) whose ages ranging from 9 to 17 to help him drive his cattle 400 miles to market . As the pre-teenaged boys in New Mexico Territory fight off grownup cattle rustlers under the tutelage of rancher Wil (John Wayne who strides the flick like a dinosaur) and his helper Jebediah Nightlinger (Roscoe Lee Browne) . As they are recruited to work for the cattle rancher , all they wanted was their chance to be men and he gave it to them . But they are pursued and finally attacked by a group of rustlers led by Long Hair (Bruce Dern). With Wil Andersen and ranch-hand Mr. Nightlinger as father figures , as they wet-nursing an entire crew of sub-teenagers on a cattle drive , as the boys learn to become men through hard work , discipline and the usual Western battles with robbers .Nice and agreeable western with a great cast and a sensational John Wayne against his nemesis magnificently played by Bruce Dern in one of his meatiest roles as the villain . Top-notch Western packs clever plot , thrills , family feeling , slightly stylized action , shoot'em up , and turns out to be pretty entertaining ; in spite of the over-sentimentality inherent in this project produced/directed by Mark Rydell . Besides , it contains good feeling as friendship , faithfulness , companionship , and enjoyable father-adopted sons relationship . And the results make extremely amusing and thundering entertainment . Furthermore , an anti-racism subtext on Roscoe Lee Browne role was written into the script in response to ongoing criticism of John Wayne , it makes this one of Wayne's better Westerns . Wayne's image still remained impervious during the seventies surviving through an overlong career . Wayne unmistakeably a legendary figure of the West and by that time he would go playing good Westerns , as he triumphantly survived his own era with titles as ¨True grit¨ in which he won an Academy Award ,¨Big Jake¨, ¨Train robbers¨ , ¨Rooster Cogburn¨ , his last film ¨The Shootist¨, and ,of course , this ¨The cowboys ¨ . In some ways is a companion movie to posterior ¨Cahill , United States Marshal¨ also involved John with kiddies . The screenplay is plain and simple , with a conventional plot , but ultimately gets overcome . Gorgeous outdoors with decent production design , shot on location in Castle Rock , Durango Colorado , Chama , Galisteo , New Mexico , Sonoita , Elgin , Arizona , and Empire Ranch , Arizona . Colorful and spectacular cinematography in Panavision by Robert L. Surtees . Rousing and emotive musical score by John Williams in his ordinary style . And you'll love both the lightning unexpected finale and the performance of Roscoe Lee Browne as Wayne's friend and food supplier . It inspired the TV series with similar cast as Robert Carradine , A Martínez , Sean Kelly , Clay O'Brien and Moses Gunn as Jebediah Nightlinger .This well-paced film was compellingly directed by Mark Rydell . Pic contains Rydell's usual themes as familiar feeling , a little bit of charming humor , friendship and and sense of comradeship among people . Mark does the human touch and full of insight that accompanied him during most of his films and the story develops pleasantly in large frames with an interesting plot and fully adjusted to the requirements of the action . Mark Rydell directed a lot of films as ¨Even Money , ¨Crime of the century¨ , ¨Intersection¨, ¨For the boys¨ , ¨Harry and Walter go to N.Y.¨, ¨Cinderella Liberty¨ and ¨The ¨Reivers¨, though his winning years were the 70s and 80s with successes as ¨The rose¨(79) , ¨On Golden pond¨ (81) , ¨The river¨(84) and this ¨The cowboys¨ .

People say (and write) many things about this movie, most commonly that it's some sort of a "message" movie, or allegory, about the war in Vietnam. Whether it is or isn't (and I say it isn't), it doesn't matter a whit. The movie stands on its own merits as (1) a fine movie, (2) a John Wayne movie --one of his last, (3) telling a good story, (4) a coming-of-age story, (5) with fine acting all the way around. In addition to The Duke, we have Roscoe Lee Browne playing the role of cook and philosopher, charming, dignified, and charismatic, and Bruce Dern, occupying the role and position of probably the all-time most evil "bad guy" villain in cinematic westerns history, and Dern more than delivers the goods. Through it all, the movie remains a coming of age story for the ages, and the proof is in the fact that it stands up well, even now, 43 years after its release.I believe the controversy stems from the fact that it's a John Wayne movie, and he was a known hawk when it came to the war. So people read into that what they want to read into that. But simple logic dictates otherwise, that this movie is not about the war. Wayne would never have participated in an anti-war film, so that rules that out. And Bruce Dern and director Mark Rydell were both known for their liberal and anti-war politics, and would not have signed on to a pro-war movie. Ergo, the movie was not making any kind of direct and intentional statement about the war, for or against. It's a bit ironical for me personally that the film carries with it that pro Vietnam war or anti Vietnam war controversy, either way (and people say both things about it). I was in Japan on R&R from Vietnam when I saw this movie in the Spring of 1972, in a Japanese theater amusingly dubbed into Japanese with English subtitles. To this day I still don't know why they did that. Why not just Japanese subtitles? But the buzz about the movie at the time was not that it was pro-war or anti-war, and I never heard any such theory like that until many years later. The only popular buzz about this movie in 1972 had to do with the nature and fact of the demise of John Wayne's character.

I guess you could say the little kids in this movie made good on their promise. But for the most part, everything about this movie is absurd and nothing is fun about it either. If you're going to have absurd at least have some fun stuff going on. The only real good laughs were where the little kids made a plan with Good Ole Roscoe Boy in about 5 minutes time to over throw say about 15 grown men lol. The viewer will get a pretty good laugh at how they catch these 15 men. A couple of the kids will be hiding in the bushes throwing ropes around a few of the men, and then other kids will jump from the trees as if they were Ewoks hitting the men to the ground. Oh and then the kids will kill all of these men. Yeah I'm sure these little kids won't be traumatized from all the killing they did or seeing John Wayne get blasted up as if he were Peter Weller in Robocop! I wasn't sure if I was watching a Cowboy movie, or if I was watching Death Wish or Hook or Peter Pan or The Sandlot, what the heck was I suppose to be watching here lol? Seriously, the only fun parts are how the kids catch the bad guys or seeing Lewis Skolnick(Robert Carradine) kill some bad guys or him riding a horse. I kept wanting him to say 'You know Gilbert...' or 'You know Booger...'. I would have loved for him to do his famous Lewis Skolnick laugh in front of the Duke and see the Duke's reaction to it. It also might have been cool if Ogre came out and yelled 'Nerds!!'. But I digress, the premise of this movie is ridiculous from the get go. John Wayne has no one to go on a cattle drive with, so he hires young kids to tame the cattle on this ride. For one thing, I get that the kids will make money and it will help their families, but some of the families of the kids would have said 'no, you'll get killed, you're not going.' Or some families of the kids would have said 'The money is good, but we need you to help around the house this summer.' Or some of the kids would have chickened out or some would have said screw this hard labor. That would have left Wayne with about 2 or 3 kids in the end. But somehow, every kid comes along on this ridiculous journey and all of their parents are cool with it and the writer even tries to justify it when the kids are leaving saying bye to their parents, as if every parent is okay with it in their own way that their kid is leaving for the summer to go on a death wish journey. Then on the trip, a couple of the kids encounter some very pretty prostitutes, so this movie should let the kids have fun with the prostitutes(can't show it of course, but why not, the movie needs to have some fun and some laughs), but no, good Ole Roscoe comes in and gives one of his usual monologue/sermons to the Madame about not to corrupt the kids please. Basically Roscoe is the BuzzKill of the movie. Everyone is always having a good time and then the minute Buzz Killington Roscoe comes onto the scene or says anything, everything stinks once again(like this movie). And does John Wayne really have to get shot and die the way he does? I mean, this film is just a complete buzzkill. John Wayne barely beats up the bad guy, then he walks away and the bad guy shoots him in the back, well not yet, first he shoots him in the arm, then in the leg, then in the other arm, then finally through the back through the chest, all in front of the kids by the way, hence the reason for the Little Rascals' Murderous killing spree, all for the revenge of The Duke(Something about Little kids killing for revenge and then laughing about it all, like little kids do, at the end of the film, just doesn't sit right in the stomach). But come on, did John Wayne really have to die like that. Couldn't the filmmaker just have him get shot in the back. Was it really necessary to make John Wayne suffer? Was really any of it necessary, any of this movie? It would have been better if John Wayne just stayed on the ranch with his woman, waiting until next year to take the herd of cattle out, and that would have been a more interesting film then what I saw. But what I saw was a ridiculous movie from beginning to end.

(7.5/10) Along with the Shootist, ranks as the best of the latter day John Wayne films. After his Oscar win in True Grit wrapped up his legacy as an American icon, his dozen or so films he did afterwards were more celebratory to his career as a whole. The theme of passing the torch to a younger generation is echoes in The Cowboys, and is a welcomed change to the typical Duke Western. Roscoe Lee Browne has an extremely memorable performance as the chef, and the Cowboys themselves were charming including the debut performance by Robert Carradine. Bruce Dern has never really impressed me, but he does a great job portraying the film's villainous coward. Director Mark Rydell did a fine job, but would have liked to see a marque director at the helm. Loved the ending and the movie in general.