Burt Lancaster is an uncompromising lawman who defies the odds when he single-handedly confronts a gang of killers in this "extraordinarily perceptive" (Films & Filming) and action-packed taleof life and justice on the American frontier. When Sabbath town-boss Vincent Bronson (Cobb) and his drunken ranch hands unwittingly kill an old man in Bannack, everyone knows it was an accident. Everyone, that is, except Bannack's marshal, Jered Maddox (Lancaster). A tough, no-nonsense manof the law, Maddox is determined to bring the killers to justice. Trailing them back to Sabbath, Maddox makes his intentions clear: "I'm gonna take these men back with me," he vows, "or kill them where they stand." So when Bronson sends word that he wants to make a deal, the inflexible Maddox refuses, a decision that forces Bronson's men to let their guns do the talking. But Jered Maddox is not aman to back down...he'll bring these desperate killers back to Bannack, his way. Dead or alive.
Burt Lancaster is excellent as the title character, a pitiless, unbending marshal out to arrest seven cowhands who left a dead man in the wake of a drunken tear, in this stoic, modern take on a classic Western theme. He confronts a rancher baron, trigger-happy gunmen, and the cowardly hypocrites of a frontier town: the usual bunch of Old West types sculpted into intriguing character by a crack cast. Robert Ryan brings a sad dignity to his former gunfighter tamed into a meek town marshal, and Lee J. Cobb is introspective and thoughtful as the aging cattleman weary of his life of violence: "It took guns to take this land, guns to keep it, and guns to make it grow.... Each time we bury the cost." Robert Duvall, Albert Salmi, and a young Richard Jordan (as an idealistic cowpoke whose sense of honor gets a workout in the complex conflicts) also star.

The first American feature by British director Michael Winner (who went on to make numerous tough Charles Bronson pictures, including the first three Death Wish movies) is lean and tough, with a streak of "passing of an era" melancholia, but surprisingly old-fashioned. The hard-edged, unsentimental violence, arid, austere look of the picture, and distracting overuse of zoom shots mark it as an unmistakable product of the early 1970s, but it's not so much cynical as sorrowful in its clash of ideals, and never less than clear-eyed in the presentation of harsh frontier realities. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Rating:
Summary: Among his Best!
Comment: These oldies were really packed with action for those days so you can't really compare to Rambo,DieHard,Bourne Ultimatum et al, but they're still fun to watch.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: You buy the man above him
Comment: A wonderful, thinking man's, neo-traditional Western. Burt excels as the lawdog made of granite. He doesn't bend, he doesn't trade. He wavers for a brief moment, but the inexorable workings of the patterns of his life pull him back into line. The flickers that pass over his tired face are a masterful demonstration of cinema acting. Beautiful, intricate script to chew on. It's stuffed with strong dialogue, full of meat. Superb, relentless pacing. Stunning shoot-outs. Like a game of chess, there are rules. But it doesn't matter how good you are; you've got to have the killer instinct if you're going to win. What are the issues? If you tried to buy the man above Maddox, who would that be? "There is no easy comfort from God" says the preacher. "From the hardness comes forth purity" is his funeral message. Maddox doesn't need to see from where he stands --- he's the sword of Gideon. And life catches up with everyone in the end. The land was won with guns, and the defeated native Americans ride past in stoic silence. Finally, after watching this implacable story several times, I managed to figure out who shot the old man in Bannock. That killing was NOT an accident. There are enough hints in the early part, and the ending brings it all together with a truly satisfying closure. This is one of the finest of the Western genre, as good as High Noon, and far better than most.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: A great Western but a criminal DVD transfer
Comment: If nothing else, Lawman proves that there is such a thing as a script so good that not even Michael Winner could screw it up, although having an excellent cast doesn't hurt. Burt Lancaster is the lawman of the title, determined to bring in several cattlemen (Robert Duvall among them) only to find that the local boss Lee J. Cobb owns the town and its once famous, now cowardly world-weary sheriff Robert Ryan, who all but steals the film. Curiously, Ryan far preferred this film to The Wild Bunch, though that may be down to Winner's deference to his stars compared with the thoroughly miserable time he had working with Peckinpah (there's another Peckinpah connection in composer Jerry Fielding, who contributes a good, brooding score). Joseph Wiseman, Richard Jordan, Albert Salmi and Sheree North are also thrown into the mix, and surprisingly all of them have well defined characters in what becomes an increasingly complex morality play about the void between what's legal and what's practical as Lancaster begins to realize that his strict adherence to the letter of the law has left him with nothing else in his life.

At times Gerald Wilson's script is perhaps a tad overwritten - everyone gets their big scene explaining their worldview, with no-one truly bad, merely weak - but it's a forgivable weakness. Winner's not quite as overly reliant on crash zooms as usual, though his characteristic laziness does manifest itself in one scene that has characters ride up to Cobb's house in darkness and come into the room in daylight, but for someone like Winner that's almost verging on the competent by his standards. Sadly MGM/UA's Region 1 DVD is a stinker of a transfer, looking like it was shot through a dirty window. The trailer is the only extra.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The other side of the showdown...
Comment: Michael Winner's "The Lawman" reveals that a sheriff - traditional officer responsible for law and order, symbol of virtue and right - is 'not' always morally excellent and virtuous or that his prey thoroughly bad...

Burt Lancaster is cast as a merciless avenger, unmoved by love or pity, determined to one end: Exterminate the opposition...

The criminals here are, in fact, some law breakers, drunken cowboys - who by bad luck - have killed an old man during a rough enthusiastic drinking bout...

Lancaster - blind to his faults, unwilling to judge or to be less severe, and with no intention to arrest - hunts his prey down, one by one, until the last man...

There is no poetic eloquence here, no tension as the two protagonists walk slowly towards their duel, no feeling that right is victorious, no good has conquered evil, no decisive clash to capture the audience's imagination... This is pure brutality: Gratuitous graphic sequences - sickening and revolting - of destroyed shoulders and collapsed faces... Uncalled details of death that may damage the sonorous knell of the 'classic Western' with its ideal behavior and precise rules traditionally observed...

The Western showdown is strictly ritual, quick, clean and purely emotional... The outcome predictable... The moment of suspense exciting as anything the cinema has ever produced...

The showdown in "The Lawman" is disturbing in the way of vision... It follows on in the tradition of Palance/Elisha Cook Jr. ultimate confrontation in "Shane," and excels Sam Peckinpah's commitment to an ideal of self-expression through violent death... It may well mean that a film like "Shane," "High Noon," "Vera Cruz," or "The Fastest Gun Alive," can never be made again...

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Lawman Remake
Comment: The original release of this film starring Burt Lancaster as the relentless alpha male and Sheree North as his attractive erstwhile lover contained an explicit bedroom scene which revealed more of the latter's earthy charms than seen in the recent remake. While the latter shows better on the screen--the original film is rough and worn through aging--the deleting of such racy images detracts from the film maker's artistic intent. Perhaps the new edition's editors expect to gain a broader audience by not offending puritancal tastes, but for me it's a disappointment. Specially since it's the only film I've ever seen of Sheree North topless (fortunately the original shows occasionally on cable t.v.). While such gratuitous editing occurs frequently on network television, one wouldn't expect it to happen on a DVD. This viewer certainly wouldn't have bought it had he known it had been cut.

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