Vera Cruz review!

Vera Cruz is not the greatest Western ever made, but it's sins are few to count and there are things here to enjoy. Vera Cruz is a pretty much by the numbers revisionist Western....and by revisionist I mean the white hats and the black hats are thrown out the window. Vera Cruz, like many of the Italian "Spaghetti Westerns" and the wonderful Anthony Mann Westerns, is a bit more complex with characters driven by something less inspiring than saving the pretty rancher's daughter or defending sod busters from ruthless cattle barons. Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper are motivated by money, taking care of themselves first and foremost or at least, in the case of plantation owner Cooper, their own.

Cooper and Lancaster, an interesting odd couple to say the least, encounter one another as they are heading down Mexico way to sell their gun-fighting expertise to the highest bidder during the Mexican Revolution against Maximillian, the French puppet emperor. While this premise may sound familiar, director Robert Aldrich throws in for spice a marquise played engagingly by Cesar Romero. He also adds Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, and Jack Elam as Lancaster's henchmen to keep the pot boiling. Things look pretty good on paper with this ragtag cowboy gang fresh from the just ended Civil War mixing it up with transplanted European nobility.

But then the characters open their mouths and you find yourself feeling a bit cheated. The dialogue which feels flat, forced, and deadly unoriginal, brings down what otherwise might have been a classic. The interactions between characters just wasn't that well conceived or delivered. This is a particular shame with Cooper and Lancaster, both fine actors representing two important eras of Hollywood....Cooper a living legend of the early studio days and Lancaster as the new young turk generation of the late forties who were forming their own production companies to stretch both their artistic chops and earning potential. What could have been an electric paring falls rather flat. Borgnine and Company are also shamefully little used....really little more than big bullies out for a good time.

Despite some good cinematography and interesting use of Aztec ruins, Vera Cruz just doesn't have much umpth in the end, when it seemed to have so much more potential. Lancaster's production company was a driving force for this film and it's hard to believe the same company would also helm classics like Sweet Smell of Success. TH Reviews rating: 3.5 out of five stars!