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Featuring George Peppard in the lead role, Cannon for Coboda sounded like a western film with some nostalgic potential. Being a generic western film by the man who helmed Guns of the Magnificent Seven in a desperate attempt to capitalize on the success of both the far superior first entry into the series and the Academy Award winning status of actor George Kennedy, there was honestly little that I expected from Cannon for Coboda beyond the hopes of some cheap cowboy entertainment with George Peppard in the lead. As a fan of The A-Team, you would think that seeing George Peppard chomping cigars and grasping weapons again would be an entertaining experience. But you'd be wrong on the basis of the fact that Cannon for Coboda does not make much of an attempt to be a guilty pleasure aside from when it titillates viewers with the sex appeal of Janis Hansen in senseless sequences of awkward dancing. In actual fact, few of George Peppard's talents are used in Cannon for Coboda. In actual fact, the film is just another generic western which might as well use a nameless actor instead of wasting the time of viewers in the unyielding hope that the charms of George Peppard might ever rise above the material. He is the only reason to watch the film, but director Paul Wendkos does not make much of a case for why he should be in this film or why audiences should care at all. George Peppard makes a mild effort in the role, even though he has to push himself through a really thin screenplay. There is middling entertainment on seeing the actor putting his hard edged persona on in his youth when his handsome appeal is in it peak, but he doesn't get into enough shootouts for his action hero status to be of any real appeal while his acting abilities are confined into the limitations of a thinly scripted B-movie. Underneath him, there is really nothing more to boast about with Cannon for Coboda. Unlike countless superior western films, Cannon for Coboda makes the mistake of filming too much at night. Instead of happening during a brightly lit frontier time, Cannon for Coboda instead relies on a night time setting for many of its scenes which darken the experience beyond comprehension. Cannon for Coboda is a very murky film from a visual perspective. Despite the fact that the scenery and the production design of the film allows a lot of potential for an effective western guilty pleasure, they are all worn down by the poor sense of lighting that plagues the film in its attempts at cheap thrills, effectively reinforcing the cheap nature of the film but doing nothing to render Cannon for Coboda synonymous with the word "thrills". Even too many of the day time scenes experience this same grim murkiness which feels like the frames of the film got dirty, failing to bring out the spirit in the general visual setup of the film. This is a problem because Western films are very important for their iconography, and the murky style of Cannon for Coboda gets in the way of that. And considering that there are no deeper themes in the narrative, it is strictly a B-movie affair. This means that essentially the only way that Cannon for Coboda is likely to effectively entertain viewers is if the action in the film is entertaining. And although there are some sporadic moments of minor entertainment, most of the film is just a very dull experience with tame action scenes which are too short and play second fiddle to a lackluster story which takes itself way too seriously. For a western B-movie to only run 104 minutes makes sense so some extent, but for it to feature such little action is just plain pathetic. This is the quintessential reason that Cannon for Coboda is not an entertaining film. I mean, you cannot advertise a western film with so much emphasis on weapons in the poster and the title then divert viewers with such a dull and overlong tale bereft of action but packed with melodrama regarding the relationships between weak characters. The abundance of focus on them drives the large scale of the start of the film into a dull character affair with exceedingly little in the way of story which furthermore makes minimal use of the scenery and production design around it. The budget for Cannon for Coboda could have been put to much better use if it were in the hands of a director who was further from being excessively generic like Paul Wendkos, but that is not the case. And while Guns of the Magnificent Seven was able to get some fun out of the presence of George Kennedy and had some decent action, Cannon for Coboda is a huge step down for the director who didn't even manage to go that far with his western film from the previous year yet still managed to decline in his ability to recognize what a good western demands. The one aspect of Cannon for Coboda that I would give any praise to is the musical score. Though the musical score of the film never precisely decides a single genre to rest on as it goes between the tense style of an old adventure film at times and a lighthearted tale at others, it is well composed with catchy tunes which prove to be the best elements of the film. They do manage to match the scenery and the general intentions of the narrative most of the time. It is played around with and placed well over the course of the story. So although the musical score and the presence of George Kennedy may be mildly effective qualities in Cannon for Coboda, the murky visual style damages the already tame few action scenes that the film has and the scale declines very fast into being a dull story about characters that nobody could care about.

Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars

01/27/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I saw it on cable recently. Old fashion western, sexist roles, lots of realistic violence, and enough plot complexity to keep it all interesting.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

01/17/23

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Paul Wendkos

Director

George Peppard

Capt. Rod Douglas

Giovanna Ralli

Leonora

Raf Vallone

Cordoba

John Russell

John J. Pershing

Gabriele Tinti

Antonio

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Synopsis

During the 1912 Mexican Revolution, rebel leader Hector Cordoba (Raf Vallone) and his bloodthirsty revolutionaries slip across the Texas border and liberate a number of cannons from a U.S. Army fort. Under direct orders from General Pershing (John Russell), Captain Rod Douglas (George Peppard) heads into Mexican territory to face down Cordoba and get back the American cannons with the help of Mexican military officer Antonio (Gabriele Tinti) and alluring local Leonora (Giovanna Ralli).

Director: Paul Wendkos
Screenwriter: Stephen Kandel
Production Co: The Mirisch Production Company
Rating: PG-13 (Sexual Content|Violence)
Genre: Western, Action, Romance
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Mar 28, 2017
Runtime: 1h 44m

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