This is my all time favorite John Wayne movie. It shows the evolution from boys to men. At the beginning of the movie we have a group of untested lads who by the end of the movie develop into true men.Will Andersen is a great influence on the boys and Roscoe Lee Browne is a true joy to the picture. The acting is superb and the action is riveting. I would recommend this film to anyone who enjoys coming of age stories.

Released in 1972 and directed by Mark Rydell, "The Cowboys" stars John Wayne as an aging rancher who is forced to hire pubescent drovers for a 400-mile cattle drive from Bozeman, Montana, to Belle Fourche, South Dakota, after his ranch hands abandon him for a gold rush. Roscoe Lee Browne plays the wise black cook while Slim Pickens & Colleen Dewhurst have small roles. This is a realistic, almost epic Wayne Western focusing on the long cattle drive and the amateur boys learning to be men. It lacks the fun brawling and unrealistic elements of John's contemporary Westerns of the 60s-70s (e.g. the quick-draw nonsense in "El Dorado"). A Martinez stands out as the outcast Hispanic amongst the kids while Bruce Dern is notable as a menacing ne'er-do-well. The almost shocking confrontation that opens the final act is a highlight and the boys' just strategy is great: KILL 'EM ALL. The film runs 134 minutes and was shot in Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Warner Brothers Burbank Studios, California. The screenplay was based on William Dale Jennings's novel. GRADE: A-

It was a great pleasure to see Duke enacting such a role than the usual roles of a cowboy. The supporting cast by Roscoe Lee Browne as a part of the crew and the schoolboys to drive the cattle drive were amazing and fun to watch. The way John Wayne guided those schoolboys were worth watching and funny as well especially the stutter scene. Meanwhile the role enacted by Bruce Dern as criminal/bandit is definitely praise worthy and it was encouraging to see him in a duel with the Duke. It would have been great to see him enacting the role of Bond Villain. At the same time of the scenes were quite emotional especially the scene before Duke's death was quite emotional and touching. Overall the film along with The Shootist is one of the best films of John Wayne in his career end. Even if a remake is made no one would be able to match up Duke in this role.

I guess you could say the little kids in this movie made good on their promise. But for the most part, everything about this movie is absurd and nothing is fun about it either. If you're going to have absurd at least have some fun stuff going on. The only real good laughs were where the little kids made a plan with Good Ole Roscoe Boy in about 5 minutes time to over throw say about 15 grown men lol. The viewer will get a pretty good laugh at how they catch these 15 men. A couple of the kids will be hiding in the bushes throwing ropes around a few of the men, and then other kids will jump from the trees as if they were Ewoks hitting the men to the ground. Oh and then the kids will kill all of these men. Yeah I'm sure these little kids won't be traumatized from all the killing they did or seeing John Wayne get blasted up as if he were Peter Weller in Robocop! I wasn't sure if I was watching a Cowboy movie, or if I was watching Death Wish or Hook or Peter Pan or The Sandlot, what the heck was I suppose to be watching here lol? Seriously, the only fun parts are how the kids catch the bad guys or seeing Lewis Skolnick(Robert Carradine) kill some bad guys or him riding a horse. I kept wanting him to say 'You know Gilbert...' or 'You know Booger...'. I would have loved for him to do his famous Lewis Skolnick laugh in front of the Duke and see the Duke's reaction to it. It also might have been cool if Ogre came out and yelled 'Nerds!!'. But I digress, the premise of this movie is ridiculous from the get go. John Wayne has no one to go on a cattle drive with, so he hires young kids to tame the cattle on this ride. For one thing, I get that the kids will make money and it will help their families, but some of the families of the kids would have said 'no, you'll get killed, you're not going.' Or some families of the kids would have said 'The money is good, but we need you to help around the house this summer.' Or some of the kids would have chickened out or some would have said screw this hard labor. That would have left Wayne with about 2 or 3 kids in the end. But somehow, every kid comes along on this ridiculous journey and all of their parents are cool with it and the writer even tries to justify it when the kids are leaving saying bye to their parents, as if every parent is okay with it in their own way that their kid is leaving for the summer to go on a death wish journey. Then on the trip, a couple of the kids encounter some very pretty prostitutes, so this movie should let the kids have fun with the prostitutes(can't show it of course, but why not, the movie needs to have some fun and some laughs), but no, good Ole Roscoe comes in and gives one of his usual monologue/sermons to the Madame about not to corrupt the kids please. Basically Roscoe is the BuzzKill of the movie. Everyone is always having a good time and then the minute Buzz Killington Roscoe comes onto the scene or says anything, everything stinks once again(like this movie). And does John Wayne really have to get shot and die the way he does? I mean, this film is just a complete buzzkill. John Wayne barely beats up the bad guy, then he walks away and the bad guy shoots him in the back, well not yet, first he shoots him in the arm, then in the leg, then in the other arm, then finally through the back through the chest, all in front of the kids by the way, hence the reason for the Little Rascals' Murderous killing spree, all for the revenge of The Duke(Something about Little kids killing for revenge and then laughing about it all, like little kids do, at the end of the film, just doesn't sit right in the stomach). But come on, did John Wayne really have to die like that. Couldn't the filmmaker just have him get shot in the back. Was it really necessary to make John Wayne suffer? Was really any of it necessary, any of this movie? It would have been better if John Wayne just stayed on the ranch with his woman, waiting until next year to take the herd of cattle out, and that would have been a more interesting film then what I saw. But what I saw was a ridiculous movie from beginning to end.