Tough black soldier Joshua (a credible performance by Fred Williamson, who also wrote the slight script) returns home after fighting for the Union during the Civil War only to discover that his beloved mother was murdered by a gang of evil white bandits. Joshua decides to track said gang so he can exact a harsh revenge on all of them. This attempt at emulating the gritty style and brooding mood of an Italian spaghetti Western is a decidedly mixed bag: While Larry G. Spangler's competent direction, the breathtaking Monument Valley locations, the laconic dialogue, the handsome cinematography, and the stark serious tone are all up to par, the often sluggish pacing, predictable meandering narrative, and Mike Irwin's jarringly wonky and incongruous electronic score leave something to be desired. The acting is likewise hit or miss: Cal Bartlett cuts a suitably hateful figure as ruthless ring leader Jed, Brenda Venus makes for a fetching damsel in distress, Isela Vega contributes a lively turn as a feisty Mexican woman, and Ralph Willingham dreadfully hams it up as annoying comic relief crazy old coot Weasle. An okay diversion.

After a savage massacre of his mother and kidnapping a girl, the black rider (Fred Williamson) , a civil war veteran , set out a personal vendetta and a rescue against a band of outlaws . He carries the vengeance in his heart and goes after the baddies in an interminable pursuit . Former rules of the code of West are dated and he's is guided by unrelenting revenge . He embarks on a bloody reckoning and during his quest helps a beautiful Mexican woman (Isela Vega). The black rider travels the Soutwestern territories and crosses paths until finding nasties .This is an average Western revenge plenty of violence , riding chases , shootouts, grisly killings and results to be quite entertaining, in spite of some slow-moving scene s. The chief excitement lies in seeing what new and amazing victim can be executed by the revenger black rider, as the nasties are beheaded , hanged , dropped a rattle-snake or bombing by means of dynamite . With similar plot to Italian Western , whose main argument being ¨revenge¨ and likeness to ¨Chato¨ where Charles Bronson revenges , one by one , the killers his family . Displays extraordinary landscapes with glimmer cinematography like is well reflected on the breathtaking outdoors filmed in natural parks of Monument Valley . This Western with lots of action packs a boring and repetitious musical score by synthesizer . The film is starred by Fred Williamson , one of the first African-American male action star of the Blaxploitation of the early 1970s , including his filmography the followings : ¨Black Caesar¨ , ¨Hammer¨ , ¨The man bolt and Black eye¨ ; besides , Isela Vega who played Western for Cantinflas in ¨Por mis Pistolas¨ and Sam Peckinpah , in ¨Bring me the head of Alfred Garcia¨ . The motion picture was regularly directed by Larry Spangler , director and producer of ¨Legend and soul of Charlie¨ , again with Fred Williamson . The film attained lukewarm reception by the public and achieved limited success .

I agreed completely with Robiep's review. I too saw it/ own it on DVD. I got it in a 20-movie "Mean Guns" westerns 5-DVD set. It was a sight-unseen purchase which has turned out to be a VERY good purchase. A lot of rare "gems" were in this movie set. And Joshua I felt is Definitely a excellent Fred Williamson film & western! Fred Williamson is an amazing actor & writer. Many have said that "Joshua" is not an "original" plot or idea. While that may be true, (Some of the scenes we have seen in many a western) I felt they were handled from every original angles. ***SPOILER ALLERT***The "rattlesnake" scene is hilarious!!

JOSHUA: THE BLACK RIDER (3 outta 5 stars) I am almost tempted to give this movie 5 out of 5 stars because it is almost perfect in its simplicity... a western movie can't get much more straight-forward than this: a man's mother is killed... and he spends the rest of the movie tracking and killing the men who did it. But, really, the acting is kind of poor and the direction is uninspired. There isn't really much dialogue so you can't say the script was well-done. Also, the movie is kind of slow... but personally I don't usually count that as a flaw... I *like* movies that take their time. Fred Williamson plays the title character... the bounty hunter bent on revenge for his mama's demise. The bad guys kidnap a woman along the way and rape her a few times but by the movie's end she has inexplicably allied herself with one of her assailants. Practically the entire soundtrack of this movie is a 90 second piece of faux-spaghetti-western music that gets repeated again and again and again... towards the end of the movie it almost becomes comical when that same old theme is repeated yet again. I think you need to *really* be a fan of westerns to like this one.. otherwise you are probably going to be bored beyond belief.