Film

Lawman

Name: Lawman
Genre: Western
Released: 1971
Cast: Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Lee J. Cobb, Robert Duvall, Sheree North

Other titles called Lawman: the 1958 series (ABC).

A methodical Western about the cost of law in frontier towns. Bannock's marshal pursues murderers into Sabbath, where a powerful rancher prefers money to justice. Burt Lancaster and Robert Ryan anchor a tense examination of whether rules matter when money and power say they shouldn't. Deliberate, intelligent, occasionally brutal.

TMDb rating

3.3

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like westerns where the moral argument matters as much as the gunplay, and where every character has a reasonable case for being wrong.

Skip it if you want a hero to root for, since nearly everyone here is compromised and the mood stays cold and talky for long stretches between the flashes of violence.

What it asks of you: Ninety-nine minutes, unhurried and dialogue-heavy, with a dry, grim tone that rewards patience and wants you to sit with uncomfortable arguments rather than hunting for a payoff.

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If you liked this

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Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid poster

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral1957

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Two people bound by rules neither wrote, watching the system that created those rules warp under pressure. Dignity meets money meets survival.

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