It is 1864 in New Mexico. Major Amos Dundee (Charleton Heston) and his column have come upon the site of a massacre. Sierra Charriba, an Apache chief, has been terrorizing the countryside. Dundee decides that he must track down the Apache and recover the children that were abducted. With the Civil War in full swing, troops to counter Charriba are limited. However, there are Confederate prisoners-of-war available; Captain Ben Tyreen (Richard Harris), a one-time friend of Dundee, is among them. Dundee sets out with a mix of the fort garrison soldiers, Confederate prisoners, volunteer criminals, and civilian volunteers to chase the Apache through Mexico. On this odyssey, they are ambushed, fight among themselves, battle the French forces in Mexico, find love, get drunk, fiesta, experience loss, and battle the Apache.
In addition to Heston and Harris, James Coburn plays Sam Potts, a one-armed scout, Brock Peters is Sgt. Aesop, the leader of the colored troops, and Jim Hutton is Lt. Graham of the artillery. Lt. Ryan (Michael Anderson Jr.) provides narration throughout the movie as he records the events in his diary. The events start in October 1864 and the final scene takes place in April 1865, after the Civil War had ended though they don't know it.
The movie is a hodgepodge with too many characters and too much going on. Where this complexity would be great in a book or a miniseries, it is distracting in a movie. According to IMDb, the script was still a work in progress during shooting and Sam Peckinpah was mostly drunk to where Heston was required to do a fair amount of the directing.
There is a gem to be had in this story and with these characters, but Peckinpah and Heston failed to find it. Mediocre.
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