Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.0

Take a Hard Ride Blu-ray Movie Review

Six the hard way.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 12, 2013

Note: This film is currently available only in this bundle: Movies 4 You: Timeless Westerns

The sixties and seventies were a time of transition for one of the hoariest genres in film, the western. What had once been a reliable box office attraction through the early fifties at least had found its mojo with audiences seriously depleted by the glut of small screen oaters which invaded television from the mid-fifties on, as well as perhaps just a natural attrition of interest caused by so many westerns having been released for so long, and by the time the early sixties rolled around, huge hit westerns were actually the exception rather than the norm. For every How the West Was Won (which was actually marketed as much as an “event” movie as it was an actual western), there were scores of other films, some with major stars and directors attached, which just fell by the wayside. Things seemed to be looking up when 1969 produced two unlikely western hits that couldn’t have been more different, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Wild Bunch. But audiences can be fickle aggregations, and while a number of fascinating westerns were made in the wake of these two hallmarks, few actually ended up connecting with audiences in any overwhelming way. The four films collected on this perhaps odd seeming two Blu-ray set from Timeless Media Group (an imprint of Shout! Factory) all fall into that less than stellar category, even if each of them has at least some redeeming characteristics (and sometimes much more than that). All of these films failed to ignite at the box office, and in fact probably were seen in such venues as drive-ins and then on various television broadcasts through the years. While they appear to be a fairly disparate bunch, spanning the years from 1964’s Rio Conchos to 1979’s Butch & Sundance: The Early Years, there are at least a couple of linking elements here, including three scores by the inestimable Jerry Goldsmith and two appearances by Jim Brown (including his screen debut). The four together provide a rather interesting look both at what went right and wrong with the western during this transitional era.

In some ways, Take a Hard Ride is the oddest duck in this aggregation of westerns. A rather bizarre mash up of traditional western elements with blaxploitation fare and even a smattering of martial arts and spaghetti western ambience, the film has a fairly traditional plot—getting a bunch of loot across the border to Mexico—but casts it in such an unusual light that what might have seemed totally cliché ridden has at least a few glimmers of originality, though probably not enough to raise it above mere middling status. This over obvious attempt to cash in on Three the Hard Way (much of the same cast and crew are involved in both films) features Lee Van Cleef as a hardbitten bounty hunter named Kiefer who is tracking (in a kind of tenuous connection which frankly that don’t make a lot of sense) Pike (Jim Brown), who has promised his dying boss (Dana Andrews in a brief role) that he’ll get the guy’s fortune to Mexico, where the man’s wife and kid live. Pike soon joins forces with suave but devious gambler Tyree (Fred Williamson), and, later, the ever popular prostitute with a heart of gold (Catherine Spaak) and, in one of the film’s most unusual elements, a mute Native American named Kashtok (Jim Kelly) who is a martial arts expert.

Take a Hard Ride is never as viscerally exciting as Three the Hard Way, and in fact it’s weirdly deliberative a lot of the time, with not very effective interplay between a too reserved Brown and a pretty garrulous Williamson taking up more time than it should, when the film should really be about the chase. This is especially odd when one considers that after a while the coterie of good guys (and gal) aren’t being followed only by Kiefer, but also by a half mad Sheriff (Barry Sullivan). The film therefore has a kind of lurching quality, where some admittedly neat action sequences (especially those featuring the high kicking Kelly) just fall by the wayside as supposed character beats go on interminably.

The old adage about Broadway musicals having “second act trouble” applies pretty vigorously to Take a Hard Ride as well, because the set up to the film is enjoyable and the finale is superb. In fact the last half hour or so of the film help to ameliorate some of the slowness of the middle section as Pike and Tyree devise a probably ludicrous plan to secure their freedom, a plan which may in fact “free” them all the way to kingdom come.

Take a Hard Ride never completely succeeds, but it’s often really quite interesting, at least when it’s dissected into its constituent parts. This may simply be a case where too many genres or approaches were tossed into the blender and the resulting mix simply has no tonal consistency to carry the story through. The film has some great moments, and some very winning performances from the dashing Williamson and the snarling Van Cleef, but this is a case where the parts are indeed greater than the whole.

Take a Hard Ride Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Take a Hard Ride is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Timeless Media Group with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. This is the least appealing looking feature of this set of four films, which doesn't necessarily means it's horrible, perhaps simply that it suffers by comparison. While the elements are in very good shape, colors are slightly anemic looking, rarely if ever really popping in any significant way. Fine detail is sometimes middling at best, though it tends to rise quite a bit above that range in some extreme close-ups. The film is quite grainy at times, especially noticeable in the desert shots, where grain swarms over the clear blue skies. Contrast is generally very good and while this never approaches pristine clarity, there's reasonable sharpness throughout this presentation.

Take a Hard Ride Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Take a Hard Ride features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix delivered via DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. This is a trouble free track which ably supports the film's dialogue and effects, as well as its fun Jerry Goldsmith score. The film is surprisingly talky at times, so there's not a wealth of opportunity to exploit dynamic range, but fidelity is excellent and while the track is narrow and not especially full sounding, there's no actual damage of any kind to report.

Take a Hard Ride Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (1080i; 2:30)


• Interview with Fred Williamson (1080i; 16:23). Rather incredibly, Williamson talks about his brief stint as an architect after his pro football career, something that drove him stir crazy after a while, motivating his entrance into show business. He talks about the lack of black heroes when he broke into films, and how the way he was perceived by a black audience was important to him.


• Interview with Jim Kelly (1080i; 10:10). Kelly talks about his martial arts background and how that ultimately propelled him into the film business, which in turn led to him being cast in Take a Hard Ride.

Take a Hard Ride Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Take a Hard Ride didn't fare nearly as well as Three the Hard Way did at the box office, and it's really not that hard to see why. First of all, audience members coming to this film expecting a sequel of sorts were probably at the very least slightly annoyed that this was a western (even if its marketing ploy trumpeted that fact). But even given that disconnect from the earlier film, Take a Hard Ride is too disjointed and multi-dimensional (for want of a better term) to ever really connect. It's obvious there was a fair amount of ambition involved in making this film, since it certainly has a lot of genres and ideas churning for attention, but it turns out to be a case of too much resulting in too little. Still, fans of the stars will most likely want to check out this release, despite the comparatively lackluster video quality.