Corrupt wealthy Texas land baron Brandt Ruger (Gene Hackman) and his rich and influential friends are on his luxury private train (stocked with hookers), ready to slaughter buffalos with new state-of-the-art high-powered, long-range rifles with telescopic sites which are “accurate up to 800 yards”.
Meanwhile, a gang of outlaws led by Frank Calder (Oliver Reed) kidnaps Ruger’s wife Melissa (Candice Bergen). Calder protects her from the relentless drunken rapist Hog (LQ Jones) and his other unruly gang members but rapes her himself and starves her until she agrees to teach him to read.
When the ruthless and sadistic Ruger hears of the kidnapping, he and his friends make a sport of stalking and picking off the kidnappers in a series of sneak attacks from a distance.
The gang members die slow, painful deaths, and Ruger lines their bodies up like trophy animals.
The frantic survivors flee, and Ruger (whose companions have, by now, left him) is so consumed with hate that he consigns himself to death by traipsing into the desert to kill both Calder and Melissa (who has developed an extreme case of Stockholm Syndrome and fallen for Frank Calder).
Doc Harrison (Mitchell Ryan) is Frank’s most trusted and sensible ally, and Matthew Gunn (Simon Oakland) is Ruger’s.
Oliver Reed acquits himself well as Calder, inspiring our sympathy and support. His American accent falters occasionally, but he is a powerful leading man. Candice Bergen goes through her range of hysteria from a tentative smile to yelps to piercing screams.
The vicious and extremely violent Western – obviously influenced by Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969) – was filmed in Spain and bombed at the box office.
Frank Calder
Oliver Reed Melissa Ruger
Candice Bergen Brandt Ruger
Gene Hackman Matthew Gunn
Simon Oakland Doc Harrison
Mitchell Ryan Hog Warren
LQ Jones Jim Loring
William Watson Sam Bayard
GD Spradlin Crimp
Rayford Barnes Watt Nelson
Ronald Howard Buford King
Bernard Kay Owney Clark
Richard Adams Collins
Dean Selmier Redhead
Sarah Atkinson Chinese Girl
Francesca Tu Teacher
Marian Collier Sheriff
Ralph Brown
Director
Don Medford
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Frank Calder
Doc Harrison
Owney Clark
