One of the best films i have seen

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

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.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Character actor Joaquin Martinez plays the title role in this pursuit-Western, a story of a fierce Apache war chief who flees a reservation with his comrades, determined to institute a reign of terror. A wet-behind-the-ears Cavalry officer, Lt. DeBuin (Bruce Davison), is put in charge of the pursuit, and while he will have the final say in military matters, he will also need to defer to the judgment of McIntosh (Burt Lancaster), the veteran Indian scout who will be used for tracking. Also along for the ride is an Indian named Ke-Ni-Tay (Jorge Luke), and DeBuin will have his doubts as to where Ke-Ni-Tays' loyalty lies.Filmed against some beautiful countryside, this is an overlooked item on the resume of accomplished filmmaker Robert Aldrich, better known for such films as "Kiss Me Deadly", "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?", and "The Dirty Dozen". Some viewers may take exception to the portrayal of Indians in this narrative, as most of them are true savages, but director Robert Aldrich and screenwriter Alan Sharp ("Night Moves") make sure to drive home the point that there will be atrocities committed by both sides. The two parties are not really that different. Lending his expert advise and wisdom is McIntosh, who always has something interesting to say to the impassioned but somewhat naive DeBuin. Aldrich and Sharp pull no punches in terms of violence, which would cause them to lose some more audience members. And yet everything plays out with a refreshing lack of sentimentality. The Cavalry endures in their mission, despite the fact that these particular opponents always seem to be more than one step ahead of them.The performances are first-rate, with Lancaster scoring in one of his most matter-of-fact, low key portrayals. Davison is just right in his part. Luke has some scene-stealing moments, especially when he says, "His wife, ugly. My wife, not so ugly." As played by Martinez, Ulzana remains something of an enigma; the character has few major scenes and not much dialogue to utter. Richard Jaeckel, Lloyd Bochner, Karl Swenson, John Pearce, and Richard Bull comprise an excellent supporting cast; among the Cavalrymen are Ted Markland, Nick Cravat, and Richard Farnsworth.Designed as a Vietnam war allegory, the picture does have a clearly stated message warning against demonizing ones' opponents, and plays out in a reasonably realistic fashion. Recommended.Seven out of 10.

The film is loosely based on the exploits of a Chiricahua Apache better known as Josanie. In November, 1885, with about ten men, he entered New Mexico from Mexico and ranged north through New Mexico and Eastern Arizona, killing and stealing horses. On the Fort Apache Reservation they killed twenty White Mountain Apaches, men, women and children. By the end of December he was back in Mexico, having killed 38 and losing only one of his men. He had traveled 1200 miles. He surrendered to General Crook in March, 1886 and was sent to Florida. He lived to attend the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo with Geronimo ( unfortunately, President McKinley also attended) . He died at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma in 1909, less than a year after Geronimo died at Ft. Sill. The film has some of the western cliches; the savvy veteran and the green officer; the white woman driven mad by abuse in the hands of the Apaches, but Lancaster is fine in the role of McIntosh, the experienced scout (the real Archie McIntosh served as a scout in Arizona, but apparently did not chase Josanie. The film is generally realistic-at one point Apaches are seen jogging along with horse guts full of water around their necks-but the ending, with McIntosh being sent as bait to lure an Apache attack, is ludicrous. Part of the film seems to have been filmed in the San Rafael Valley, a beautiful spot on the Arizona-Mexico border.

Ulzana's Raid is war games out in the deserts of the old American West that happens to have been stretched to the length of a hundred and three minutes, a film depicting the battle between two sides vying for a territory more than it is any sort of enveloped narrative or intense character study. Imagine a team based game of Monopoly with packed groups of people on either side contesting a vaster, more open board but with the competitor's life on the line instead of large amounts of fictitious money. While we're on the subject, imagine the barren, sandy states of the American frontier as one large chess board wherein varying soldiers and troops of varying ability and rank capable only of particular things that come naturally to them move around the game zone vying for victory. While the film is essentially a series of sequences dedicated to tracking and moving and trying to work one's opponent out, veteran director Robert Aldrich just happens to have made it as gripping as it is. The respective sides in this case are, somewhat originally, the cowboys and the Indians; members of a Union Army, of whom have employed an elderly tracker who's seen one too many examples of what the Indians are capable of, and the indigenous Apaches – a group led by a notoriously savage chief whose barbarism and hatred for the whites that have settled is equal only to his love for this once pure land. Shrouded in darkness, our introduction to these Apache people paints a worryingly bleak picture as to what folk will come up against, when these horrifically scarred and robotically inclined beings raid a ranch and make off with a far more human-a looking white man's horses. The antagonist in this case is the titular Ulzana (Martinez), the man leading these people; a brutal man, not a thief or a cutthroat out of nature but out of the application of colonisation to his land, a savage man but only through war.Cut to the bright, welcoming daylight of a baseball match being played between those in the Union Army within the confines of their outpost. Things are cheerier and more upbeat, especially now that we've moved away from those 'nasty' Apaches and their night-set shenanigans. A young lieutenant named Garnett DeBuin (Davison) does well to stand up to those rougher, meaner and more ego-centric as he calls the game, in spite of his young and angelic appearance. Before anything can get too out of hand, an American scout rides in from the wilderness having been called upon as an Apache expert and someone who's lived and dealt with them in past, in spite of his reluctance to agree to their nature and views. He is McIntosh, played with a gruff aplomb by Burt Lancaster; once a young and somewhat angelic actor himself who enjoyed his time standing up to those in his profession of a more hardened nature, particularly in early films such as "The Killers". Here to deal with the threat of Ulzana, McIntosh offers a stern warning to those eventually charged with chipping in with him that Ulzana is a vicious, merciless man. Indeed, "Half of everything he says is a lie, the other half just 'aint true" is the parting shot issued by the scout on Ulzana. The body of the film is this platoon of gunmen on horseback navigating the terrain in search of Ulzana and his men. The titular Indian knows he's being tracked by this group; the army don't know where he's heading and considering just how violent Ulzana can be in his recent attacks against white settlers, there is a sense of the whole thing being one giant race against time as settlers lives remain in danger. Internal clashes between McIntosh and DeBuin see two men disagree over whether some kind of truce can be formed between the whites and the natives, McIntosh's worn dress; elderly composition and rough talking tone is manufactured to be seen as the epitome of old, politically incorrect and 'wrong' headed thinking when stood beside DeBuin's younger, fresher and more broadly minded uniformed soldier. It is unfortunate, then, that the duality inherent in these two men is eventually sidestepped for an all-out war one could accuse of being episodic, but there is enough of a grip on the audience and is never one worn out by its nature in this regard.If I was surprised by how gripping the film was, given its approach, to depict a series of tracking; talking; stopping and planning, then I was even more surprised by often how tough-a film this is. Make no mistake, the scenes involving the brutality that Ulzana inflicts upon the people of the terrain are often startling and it is indeed a sorry state of affairs when we realise just how watered down mainstream cinema has become in an era of genre hybridisation and big-business that drives American genre films of the modern day. At least in the era of Ulzana's Raid, violence and solid depictions of the old west in general could make its way into a mainstream piece because the mainstream were predominantly adult. Synonymous with the death of the Western genre (because it's tough to 'vamp up' a Western with cartoonified narrative elements and numerous sub-genres) is the death of films made by adults FOR adults, replaced by frat/fan-boy driven financial opportunists who produce cinematic stinkers in a set genre for people of similar ilk. Perhaps Ulzana's Raid is a bit episodic; perhaps it isn't much more than an exploitation film and maybe it wasn't immune to criticisms of it being mainstream upon release, but it's a sure-sight better than what we get now.

"Ulzana's Raid" is a bit more modern in style than many westerns, as it's bloodier and is a bit more grim than most films in the genre. However, it's not all modern, as there is no trace of the changing attitudes towards the American Indian, as in this film the Apaches are pretty much scum. This tribe takes pleasure in torture, murder and rape--things you won't see in a more modern western...if they made them any more. I am not sure how true this depiction of this particular tribe is true as well as one soldier blowing out his brains after murdering a white woman to prevent them from capturing them. All I know is that this made for a rather depressing film.Burt Lancaster plays a grizzled old scout. He is experienced in dealing with the Apache. Bruce Davison plays a VERY young and inexperienced Cavalry lieutenant who is in charge of a small expedition that is out to chased down and kill the Apache, Ulzana, and his raiding party. Much of the film consists of desert shots--with soldiers following Ulzana's trail. This is punctuated by period brutal scenes--brutal for 1972, though not all that brutal today.I noticed that some of the reviewers really liked this film. I found it all to be a bit ponderous and you KNEW how the film would end--only exactly how it got there was in question. An okay western but not among Lancaster's better films.By the way, although the film is rated R, it probably today would be rated PG-13 or perhaps even PG.