The odd idea to use kids instead the real cowboys no make sense at all,even if you didn't have these men ready to do a long journey,the premise is dangerous and didn't pay a single death whose will happen along the trip,the way that the teenagers are about to do is more than they really could delivery,so the movie didn't get the target to real life,a kid's life for a few dollars didn't seems a fair trade...but if you forget all this stupid idea the movie could be an easy entertainment for all....a singular performance of old and good Roscoe Lee Browne and some boys.Resume:First watch: 1992 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 7

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-

You would think the plot employed in this movie would have been used extensively before, but I believe this is the first time I've ever run across it. With rancher Wil Andersen's (John Wayne) hired hands going for the gold, he breaks down and hires a passel of young school kids to make a cattle drive. I found it interesting that the schoolmarm Miss Ellen (Allyn Ann McLerie) used a Montgomery Ward catalog for reading lessons because of it's well constructed grammar. Something to think about.I'm reading some of the other reviews here and had to wonder why so many writers called Bruce Dern's character 'Long Hair', presumably because that's how he's listed in the credits for the movie here. He introduced himself to Andersen by the name of Asa Watts before being summarily fired even before being hired. I've seen Dern in these kinds of skeevy roles before, but never so downright vicious. His gunning of Andersen which sets up the movie's final showdown between the cowboy factions is downright brutal. It might have been Wayne's most violent death in film.So you have a gritty coming of age picture here, and I was keenly attentive to see how the film progressed the characters over the course of the story. Starting out as green gilled pre-pubescent young boys for the most part, the process of maturing them along the way was handled quite deftly under the watchful eye of director Mark Rydell. I got a kick out of Roscoe Lee Brown's character when he first came on the scene, questioning Wil Andersen's hiring preferences - "Well, doesn't anything larger wanna work for you?" Clearly if made today, the picture would register it's fair share of opposition for the way the boys sought to avenge their mentor and former trail boss. I don't remember any reaction back when this was made but then again, I wasn't really paying attention. It's an age old dilemma that different generations handle things differently. For my part, I vote with Slim Honeycutt (Robert Carradine) when he says "We're gonna finish the job".

The Cowboys is directed by Mark Rydell and adapted from the novel written by William Dale Jennings; who co-writes the screenplay with Irving Ravetch & Harriet Frank Jr. It stars John Wayne, Roscoe Lee Browne, Bruce Dern and Colleen Dewhurst. John Williams scores the music and Robert Surtees is the cinematographer. Plot sees Wayne as tough cattleman Wil Andersen, who after finding all his cowhands have fled to find their fortune elsewhere, is forced to use a bunch of green teenagers to get his beef to market. It's a journey of some distinction, for Wil, the boys and the villains who lurk on the edges of the frame.If ever there was a John Wayne picture that was in need of serious critical reevaluation, both as a measure of his acting ability-and quality in film narrative, then The Cowboys is the one. It's a film that has been known to upset the liberal minded, where the ideology at its core has been lambasted as being objectionable in the least. Yet looking at it closely, away from the humour that does exist within, it finds the Duke at his most vulnerable, therefore believable, and at its centre it's a coming of age tale told with cynical coldness. During this cattle drive innocence will be lost, Andersen is tough and a disciplinarian, yet he's always a benevolent father figure. Wil himself hit the cattle drive trail at 13, he knows the pains and perils of such a task. He also knows that boys need to become men, especially out here in the wilderness. I'd be disappointed in a piece of Western genre cinema if it glossed over this fact. And The Cowboys doesn't, it has a sting in its tail, the trick is that the boys are not judged by how Wil taught them, but defined by a turn of events that calls on them to "man" up. The actions of another being the catalyst for childhood's ending.Robert Surtees' photography paints a beautiful picture, it's pastoral, broad and appealing, but crucially it doesn't make it poetic. These young lads are entering the unknown, each section of God's great land is beautiful to us, but dangerous to them. It's an overlooked point that critics of the film ignore, that of Wil Andersen not leading these boys on a romantic trip thru the colourful terrain. It's not romantic, it's dangerous, and it's credit to Surtees that he achieves both sides of the coin; beauty and peril in the same frame. The young actors are, expectedly, a mixed bunch, but there's nothing here to be overtly negative about. Roscoe Lee Browne is terrific, his shift from wry observationalist to "Mother Hen" is handled with great skill, and Bruce Dern is memorable in more ways than one. The complaints come from not enough screen time for Colleen Dewhurst, who playing a bordello madame positively threatens to send the film's rating thru the roof (and the male viewers temperature's), while the running time is simply too long-too episodic-and quite frankly, unnecessary.The Cowboys is not a perceived John Wayne macho based fantasy movie, it has meaning, depth, bravery and a first class performance from the Duke himself. 8/10