I hate reviewing movies like this. There's a lot of people on the planet that might think this is the worst film they have ever seen, and they might be right. It's impossibly boring, the characters are bland, and when the story finally begins a full half-hour in, it is unsatisfactory in every way.
Directed by and starring Peter Fonda, "The Hired Hand" is an exercise in cinematography, with a story thrown in for show. This never works-it's like listening to a Steve Vai album. Hell of a guitar player, but the dude can't find a song to play.
The plot involves Fonda returning home to the woman he married after seven years of roaming the countryside for no particular reason. He married young it seems, and didn't get a chance to see the world. What he saw he didn't like, and came back with his tail between his legs-or is that his tail on the horse next to him, in the form of his travelling companion Warren Oates.
After the first half-hour is spent getting Fonda back home, the next half-hour is spent answering all those questions that nobody wants answered. Questions like, "why do cowboys spend all of their time with men when all they can think about is women?" and "what happens to a woman's sex life when she's stuck out on a farm by herself?" and even, "What does Peter Fonda look like naked?"
The final half-hour tacks on a silly gunfight in which the winner is completely irrelevant because none of the characters were ever alive in the first place.
So why do I hate reviewing movies like this? Because for some inexpicable reason, I rather enjoyed the film. It's got Warren Oates, one of my favourite actors to kill time with. It's got pretty pictures and lots of cheesy optical tricks that only the star of "Easy Rider" might think were cool. Verna Bloom, as the wife, looks into the camera's eye and admits she likes sex. Can't say as I've ever seen that in a western before. This film is so damned patient you have to respect it on some level. I'd rather watch a miserably boring mistake like this than a paint-by-numbers action or comedy genre-flick.
I cannot and will not recommend "The Hired Hand," but I don't regret watching it and I'll smile if I ever think on it. Y'all.
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