Quick recap: A tired gunslinger,Shane, comes across a farm owned by Joe Starrett, in need of serious help. He starts working for him and his family and also gets involved in a dispute with Rufus Ryker, a cattle baron, out to take the Starretts’ land.

Shane could shoot, but he was best when posing and looking heroic

Fun fact: During the scene when Shane and Joe fight, the horses were supposed to act frightened. In order to really build up some hysteria, a couple of guys in bear suits went out and spooked them. That’ll do it.

My thoughts: When it comes down to it, I don’t really have an opinion on Westerns. I haven’t seen many, but, being from Texas, I feel like it is something I should enjoy. The thought of sitting down to watch a Western just seems sort of comforting, like I would imagine old men enjoy doing on a Saturday afternoon.

I don’t know if this is a positive aspect or not, but Shane was exactly what I expected it to be. The scenery was beautiful and there were more than enough grizzled cowboy characters to keep my attention. Before the movie even began, I knew that Shane would be involved in a fight somehow and eventually come out on top. So I guess the lack of surprise made watching the movie all the more comforting. The fight scenes were about as over the top as I expected, including the final showdown. If you want to imagine what the movie looked like, imagine the most stereotypical Western town, complete with the good guy wearing white and the bad guy wearing black. That’s Shane.

I was quite impressed with the menacing grin on Jack Palance’s face

Now, I could easily write the movie off as nothing special and be done with it. But you see, I can’t do that because of the kid in the film. I think the director was going for ‘cute’ and ‘precocious’ when casting Joey, but instead I saw ‘annoying’ and ‘will probably grow up to stalk others’. I don’t know why, but that kid annoyed the hell out of me. His voice was so whiny and he looked like he would’ve fit in with the Children of the Corn. It’s not really his fault, though, because his parents are really to blame. Who lets their child hang out with a random guy that just shows up in your yard one day? Case in point, the final scene when Shane fights Joe to keep him from getting killed by Ryker. Shane eventually wins, but only because he took his gun out and knocked Joe out cold. Joey, the little boy, screams out ‘ I hate you!’ to Shane, which was probably the smartest thing he had said thus far. But then Shane took off to fight Ryker himself and the parents were totally cool with their kid running after him and possibly getting hurt. Then again, maybe they were as tired of him as I was. The iconic final moment where Joey chases after Shane (he does that A LOT) and yells, ‘ Come back, Shane! I love you, Shane,’ made me root for the hero even more. Shane probably rode out into the sunset thinking, ‘thank god I escaped that hot mess’.

He can stare into your soul

Final review: 2/5. Apparently, there is a debate whether Shane dies at the end and left the family so that they wouldn’t see him suffer. Dying would’ve made the movie more interesting, although I still stand by my opinion that he just wanted to escape the clingy kid.

Up next: Little Ceasar