THE CULPEPPER CATTLE CO. is a little-known and little-appreciated western in the Sam Peckinpah mould. It's also a coming-of-age drama about a young cowhand (Gary Crimes) who joins up with a gang of men who go on various scrapes and adventures and often find themselves outside of the law. An ensemble cast work hard to convey their characters here, with the inimitable Geoffrey Lewis standing out as a typical hard case. The dense storytelling is punctuated by the occasional burst of realistic violence, and things build to an appropriately satisfying climax. It makes for solid viewing.

The Culpepper Cattle Company finds young Gary Grimes rather bored with life in his small farming community so he goes off to what he imagines from dime novels as the glamorous life of a cowboy. A lot of the same ground was covered in the Glenn Ford/Jack Lemmon western Cowboy done in the 50s.This film makes that one look glamorous. He signs on with Billy Green Bush's trail drive and one thing is certain, Grimes just does not have the right stuff. He also finds that cowboying is dirty, dusty work day after day which can be filled with danger from the elements or from your fellow man.One thing is certain, there ain't no law out there so to speak so one makes one's own. In the end actually trying to act like movie cowboy heroes gets a lot of people killed.Such familiar folks on the drive as Bo Hopkins, Geoffrey Lewis, and Luke Askew are among the trail hands. There's one really nasty and psychotic villain in John McLiam who emerges in the last third of the film.In the near future Grimes would be featured in a John Wayne western, Cahill, US Marshal. But The Culpepper Cattle Company is about as far away from a Wayne film as you can get.But it's a sleeper of a good western.

This is an offbeat western ,with a strong documentary side.Gary Grimes is the all-American-boy who wants to experiment the hard cowboys life.And it avoids the usual clichés of the genre;after a bloody odyssey,we are not sure that the boy has grown into a man,like usually in this kind of screenplay.When he rides away,after the massacre,all we can guess is that he has probably lost his faith in God (if he had any) .No love interest, unless the scene with the hooker counts -here again the lad does not behave like he is supposed to .And no sentimental side either ,the Farewell-to-mom scene ,is so short that she has not even the time to ask him whether he will come back. No real friendship with the men,except perhaps from the boss.Bewildering.

"The Culpepper Cattle Co." is a good, solid coming-of-age story set in the Old West, done in the gritty post-Peckinpah style that lets us know that the characters in this tale are leading hard lives. It also becomes a tale of redemption as men neither "good" nor "bad" finally decide to take a stand and do something honourable. Director Dick Richards ("Farewell, My Lovely"), who also gets story credit, gets excellent performances out of a cast that includes many top character actors. Some viewers may not be able to stomach how violent things eventually get, but there are many fine moments along the way. There's no filler here, just simple and effective story telling, enhanced by the work of two credited cinematographers (Ralph Woolsey and Lawrence Edward Williams) and two credited composers (Tom Scott and the legendary Jerry Goldsmith).Gary Grimes of "Summer of '42" fame stars as Ben Mockridge, who more than anything yearns to be a cowboy and gets the chance to work on a cattle drive supervised by tough, business-oriented Frank Culpepper (Billy Green Bush, "Five Easy Pieces"). As Culpepper and his company press on, they must deal with a cattle rustler (Royal Dano), a horse thief (Gregory Sierra), a trapper (Paul Harper), and personality conflicts, with hot tempered Russ Caldwell (an effectively wired Geoffrey Lewis) making trouble on more than one occasion. The biggest obstacle will turn out to be miserly land owner Thorton Pierce (a memorably hateful John McLiam), who's not inclined to be very understanding.Ben's journey to becoming a man is a reasonably compelling one, and Grimes is fine in the role, but the show is stolen by his older co-stars. Also among them are Luke Askew ("Cool Hand Luke"), Bo Hopkins ("The Wild Bunch"), Wayne Sutherlin ("The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid"), and Matt Clark and Anthony James from "In the Heat of the Night". Also look for appearances by Charles Martin Smith, Hal Needham, Arthur Malet, and Dennis Fimple.Well done overall, with some very sobering sequences and the occasional comedic touch; the action is intense and the violence, admittedly, is fairly shocking. It's enjoyable stuff deserving of a rediscovery.Seven out of 10.