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Junior Bonner (1972)

Rate: 9
Viewed: 6/05, 7/08, 7/15, 2/22

Bonner
6/05: "I'm workin' on my first million, and you're still workin' on eight seconds" is what Junior Bonner is all about.

Sam Peckinpah's style echoes throughout just like The Wild Bunch, and it's very beautiful. Steve McQueen is perfect. J.R. Bonner is one of his finest characters. Abstract and poetic, Junior Bonner is the best rodeo cowboy picture made, capturing an authentic slice of Americana.

All in all, Junior Bonner ranks among the greatest films of Steve McQueen's and Sam Peckinpah's careers.

7/08: Junior Bonner beautifully captures the rodeo cowboy lifestyle for the posterity to get a glimpse of what it was like back then.

Sam Peckinpah once again stamps his trademark editing style that makes his films unique and distinctive from others. Americana has never been captured so well as in Junior Bonner. It also features one of the best Steve McQueen's performances. He plays the role in the manner of "you can take him out of the West, but you can't take the West out of him." Robert Preston, Joe Don Baker, Ida Lupino, and Ben Johnson have been satisfying.

All in all, "I'm workin' on my first million, and you're still workin' on eight seconds" captures what Junior Bonner is about.

7/15: Junior Bonner is undeniably the best film on rodeo that paints a slice of Americana and represents the changing times.

It's also one of the best works of Steve McQueen's career. Not having to say much, he lets his facial expressions do the acting for him. That's why Steve McQueen was an underrated actor who graduated with honors from The Method school.

If The Wild Bunch is the most violent film of Sam Peckinpah's oeuvre, Junior Bonner is his most calm. Frank Santillo and Robert Wolfe's editing, complemented by Lucien Ballard's cinematography, is still spectacular as ever.

All in all, "I'm workin' on my first million, and you're still workin' on eight seconds" is perfect.

2/22: This line says it all about Junior Bonner: "I'm workin' on my first million, and you're still workin' on eight seconds."

Sam Peckinpah made a career out of violence in cinema, but Junior Bonner is his gentlest. The editing is superlative, especially during the rodeo scenes. It's about tradition versus modernization. Of course, the latter won out as evidenced today with capitalism being the king. Rodeo has always been predicated on animal abuse, hence the end of its popularity nationally. The world's oldest rodeo, Prescott Frontier Days has been running since 1888.

Looking almost finished, Steve McQueen is at his best, not having a lot to say. He lets the action speak for him and is therefore larger than life. Everybody else is excellent with plenty of character development without the need to bring in the backstory that much. Ben Johnson was a rodeo cowboy and could ride the horse very well; the belt buckle that Steve McQueen carries around is Ben Johnson's 1953 World Championship title for team roping.

All in all, Junior Bonner is still an underrated rodeo masterpiece.