This particular western must have somewhat bewildered the few people who initially saw it in theaters when it was released in 1971. While the previous few years had had the western genre shook up by the spaghetti westerns from Italy and violent American westerns like "The Wild Bunch", this particular western seems to come from a earlier time. It's an old fashioned kind of western. Nothing really wrong with that, as long as the execution is done well. But sadly, the movie is a big letdown. The main reason why it fails is that most of the movie is really boring. The little story there is moves at a snail's pace, with abundant padding throughout. Things could have still been saved with an extra ingredient like action or comedy, but the movie is a letdown in those areas as well. There is very little action up to the violent climax, and the violence in the climax is not worth the wait. As for the comedy, it is pretty lame, with the only laugh being an unintentional one (a character has the name "Emilio Estevez".) Small wonder that headline star Dean Martin seems alternately bored or somewhat bewildered with what is going on around him. By the way, he's also offscreen for long periods of time, which he was probably thankful for.
Review of Something Big
