Search - The Missouri Breaks on DVD

MPAA Rating: PG Content Advisory: Violence, Not For Children Movie Release: 1976 DVD Release: 11/08/2005 Format: DVD - Color,Enhanced Wide Screen Letterbox for 16x9 TV - Closed Captioned Audio Tracks: English Subtitles: English, French SwapaDVD Credits: 1 Number of Discs: 1 Run Time: 2 hrs 6 mins Studio: MGM Members Wishing: 7 Genres: Western, Revisionist Western

A rancher, a rustler, and a regulator face off in Arthur Penn's eccentric western. As a cover for their horse thievery, a gang of Montana rustlers, led by the laid-back Tom Logan (Jack Nicholson), buys a small farm adjacent to the ranch of their latest target/nemesis, Braxton (John McLiam). When the gang leaves Tom on the farm and heads to Canada for another score, Tom takes a shine both to farming and Braxton's rebellious, strong-willed daughter, Jane (Kathleen Lloyd). The slightly loco Braxton, however, hires the psychopathic regulator Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando) to root out the rustlers. With a series of unorthodox methods (and costumes), Clayton hunts down Logan and his gang one by one, even after Braxton fires him, but Logan isn't about to let Clayton (or Braxton) make him obsolete. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide

Marlon Brando - Lee Clayton
Jack Nicholson - Tom Logan
Kathleen Lloyd - Jane Braxton
Randy Quaid - Little Tod
Frederic Forrest - Cary

Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks (1976), which apparently has a much better reputation in Europe than it does in the U.S. (it showed up over there on a Region 2 DVD considerably before it did in the USA) has finally made its bow on a Region 1 American disc. The transfer is a good one overall, the letterboxed (1.85:1) image restoring the movie's correct non-anamorphic widescreen picture and with good, loud sound to go with it. The colors and details in the opening shot -- a consciously "arty" deep-focus view of the prairie through some dandelions -- are gorgeous and they get better as the movie advances. Indeed, one is glad that this movie wasn't done too much sooner than it was -- had it been released in the late '60s, when the transfer technology was a lot more primitive, there would be a lot lost in the details, and as it is, one gets the sense that this movie is pushing the resolution and authoring limits of standard DVD presentation; it would make an interesting super-bit release, if MGM/UA did such discs. As it is, even the night shots and the dusk shots have usable picture information, and coupled with the unusual John Williams score -- made up of music in a traditional Western mode, with no orchestra in sight -- it's a diverting two-hours or so of viewing, broken down into 12 chapters that are barely adequate, given the 126-minute running time. The only extras are a promotional reel devoted to Western DVDs and trailers for films from the same distributor -- those, and the movie, are accessible through an easy-to-use two-layer menu that opens automatically on the disc's start-up. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide