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Rating: Sam Peckinpah is considered one of the most important innovators and rejuvenators of global western cinema. He delved into the genre, revealing multiple facets and dealing with characters with a psychological connotation previously difficult to find in this genre. He dedicated a large part of his life to the "frontier cinema," directing what have become not only undisputed masterpieces but also films that have become part of the collective imagination: "The Wild Bunch" and "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid" are clear examples of how Peckinpah managed to establish himself even through time, marking forty years of world cinema with the dry sound of guns.
However, before these titles, there is a period of "apprenticeship" behind the camera, where what will be explored in the future is here outlined in its rougher parts. "Ride the High Country" is one of the chapters of this first phase of Peckinpah's career, dated 1961. The story of how two characters, friends with each other, Gil (Randolph Scott) and Steve (Joel McCrea), separate due to events caused by the smell of money, already "god money" in the Peckinpahian vision. The dollar, gold, the hope of success that triumphs (at least seemingly) over friendship. But there is also the final acknowledgment of the fundamental importance of values within society, the recognition of affections, and the awareness of their clear superiority over economic attainment of happiness.
This synthesis between values and temptations is proposed by the "early Peckinpah" through a precise psychological characterization of the main figures. All characters assume a very specific role, almost embodying real values: there is someone who takes on the human form of justice, someone opportunism, someone youthful naivety, someone the hope of a new life. There is a synergy of different characters. Directly alongside these virtues, with the character of the various characters, there is also the violence that will characterize the subsequent cinema of the Fresno director. The importance of this element is found both in the scene of the initial brawl in the bar and in the equally famous wedding sequence, where the violent element is mixed with the intervention of the "righteous."
Moreover, in the filmic construction of "Ride the High Country," there is, besides the values and themes addressed, the unmistakable directorial imprint of Sam Peckinpah. A technique still to be "polished" but where the skill of the filmmaker is already visible: a classic and slow pace, where shots in favor of a landscape emerge that do not become an additional member of the film, but are limited to being the backdrop where the narrated events unfold and take place.
The inevitable conclusion for a film of this type, where the typical values of the genre emerge and the predominance of a classically slow rhythm, materializes in the splendid final shootout, where the "clash" occurring between two of the main characters becomes a "meeting." The drama of the finale distinguishes Peckinpah's class in knowing how to balance emotion and action. The last words, the "definitive" dialogue between two friends who discover only at the end of the journey, the long path traveled together...
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