The Missouri Breaks (1976)

So Heimat's over, we dry our tears and try to get on with our lives.

We've got a backlog. And to celebrate our clock going back, we put the extra hour to good use and watch a Western. I love a good Western, and this is a good Western.

It has Jack Nicholson doing a Jack Nicholson so much more convincingly than Christian Slater does. Jack's the leader of the gang, he is, he is. He looks like a horse thief and he is, too. Real rugged, like. And there's his sidekick, Wild Billy Childish, played by Harry Dean Stanton.

The local rancher has hired regulator Marlon Brando to make sure no more of his stock of horses git stolled. So Marlon is the murderous nutter with right on his side. There's Method in his madness as he hunts down the horse thieves. Like all good Westerns, there's revenge, revenge, a bit of love, more revenge, and more revenge. And in the end, Jack's the last man standing.

Unusually for a Western, we're taken over the border to Canada where Harry Dean Childish and his fellow rustlers rustle up a heck of a lot of Mounties' horses while the hunky chaps are singing their Sunday hymns in church. The Mounties are so God fearing that they leave their stock of horses completely unguarded.

Sadly, several horses were injured in the making of this film, and one drowned. And one hare either died or was a bloody good actor.

But as any huntsman knows, you can't make a cheese omelette without grating some cheese. Can you?