dave j
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
(1976) Joshua
WESTERN
Do you want to see many scenes of pointless minutes of people riding their horses, then this film is for you. Story provided by it's star by the name of Fred Williamson, who solidified his mark when he starred in those "Shaft" films plays Joshua- hence the title returns home from serving the union cavalry only to be driven for revenge after 5 outlaws killed his dear old mother. And the timing couldn't even been more perfect as a small group of law makers also come back to inform the only witness living that they had just decided to give up on their chase for some convoluted reason, so Joshua decides to take it upon himself to go after them himself. If there was any reason I would "want" to like this movie, it would've been the inventive ways each of these outlaws get killed without resorting to using a gun, but although it succeeds to do that- it's also convoluted at the same time and it is for that reason it's hard to accept this as an involving film. For instance, on one scene, Joshua succeeds into spearing a wooden spear onto one of the "wanted" outlaws on the neck, then almost immediately on the next scene he's unable to find and locate them, and they're not travelling anymore faster than they had last left. What this film does is it defies logic and science, and the person to be blamed for that is the director Larry G. Spangler. I mean, how did it come about that Joshua also had jurisdiction about the girl that the wanted outlaws had kidnapped and assaulted decide on her fate. The movie never answers leaving viewers with more questions that can't be answered.
2 out of 4 stars
Rated 2/5 Stars •
Rated 2 out of 5 stars
03/30/23
Full Review
Audience Member
CULT MOVIE MONTH
REVIEW #:011
JOSHUA [1976]: Yet another lesser known Western appears on my viewing list in this month long look at Cult Movies. After picking this up from a bargain bin on DVD for $ 3.00 NZ Dollars (roughly $ 2.55 US when this review was published), I was happy to see how grainy and faded the transfer of the film was on DVD complete with massive scratches, splices and dirt galore. In this forgotten B-Western written and Starring Cult Movie legend Fred "The Hammer" Williamson sees his character Joshua a Black Solider returning from the Union Army after U.S Civil War and him hunting down the killers of his beloved mother. Of Course in a good old fashioned bloody Western-Revenge rampage ensues across the barren landscape. Aside from a weak ending, the rest of the film is mildly entertaining which is why it gets a solid 60% from me.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
02/22/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This is my first review of a Fred Williamson film, but you can rest assured its not the first time I have seen a Fred Williamson Film, because Fred has been involved in over 200 movies, what other Black Actor Can say that. Had a lot of Grind house Stuff. This is a Spaghetti Western whose main Character is Black, Pretty Rare I would say. Joshua returns home from the civil war where he has killed a boat load of people, Coming home to rest and pick up Mama and take her back to his place back east, Mama is working as a cook for a white man and his new mail order bride the very beautiful Brenda Venus. Well 5 riders come down off the mountain and they are invited in for dinner, like we don't know that?s going to be a mistake, well the five shoot dad and take his wife ( the mail order bride) a rape her and shoot Joshua's Mom, before he gets home. Well the 5 ride off and take the mail order bride with them, and within a day or two see seems to enjoy being taken off by the bad guys and being rode hard. Reminds me of a few I've been involved with. Well Joshua picks them off one by one, and this guy Weasel played by Ralph Willingham is about as annoying as one can get, heck I was going to whip out my pistol and shoot him. Joshua is offered the mail order bride in the end and she screams noooooooooooooo! So Bamm she gets hers with the last bad guy as Fred Blows them up with 3 sticks of Dynamite. My copy was from the Mill Creek 20 pack Mean Guns and the copy sucked it was oversized (Sure wasn't modified to fit my screen) Anyway 3 stars nothing more.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Joshua, (Williamson) returns from fighting in the American Civil War to find his mother murdererd and her employer's wife kidnapped. He sets out in pursuit and to gain revenge.
"Joshua" starts out promising, but it quickly degrades into a morass of excessive padding (there's maybe 45-50 minutes of material stretched over two hours) and nonsensical "plot" elements (why does Joshua only kill one of the kidnappers/murderers whenever he catches up with them? Why doesn't he free their abductee early on? What's up with that town of "renegades" Joshua comes across during his pursuit?). To add to the mess, the film is virtually free of character development and the soundtrack music, which starts out sounding really cool, becomes annoying and tedious because a total of five minutes worth of music was written for the film [i]and it seems to be looping non-stop as the film plods toward it's idiotic ending.
The only good thing I can say about the film is that the bad guys were the sort of annoying, slimy creeps who you feel wholeheartedly deserved to die. Even this aspect of the film is messed up, however, because the most annoying of the bad guys (Weasel, played by Ralph Willingham) is so annoying that you can't wait to see him die... and then his death happens off-screen and fairly quickly.
I'm rating this movie a very low (and very generous) Three, because it did keep me engaged to the end... but I can't recommend watching it unless you've set yourself the goal of seeing every single Fred Williamson movie.
Joshua (aka "The Black Rider" and "Vengeance")
Starring: Fred Williamson, Cal Bartlett, Brenda Venus, Ralph Willingham, Isela Vega, and Henry Hendrick
Director: Larry G. Spangler
Rated 1.5/5 Stars •
Rated 1.5 out of 5 stars
01/18/23
Full Review
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