The Last of the Clintons: A dusty, familiar ride

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, only if you have a soft spot for the kind of B-westerns that were churned out like factory parts back in the day. If you’re looking for high art or a reinvention of the genre, move along. But if you want to watch guys in hats ride horses through the desert for 60 minutes, you’re in the right place.

The plot is about as thin as a piece of parchment. Our hero is deep undercover, pretending to be a bad guy to bust a racket. It’s the standard setup. We’ve seen it in Thundering Thompson and a dozen other flicks. It works, but it’s not exactly going to surprise you.

The "Kidnapping" Problem

The whole movie hinges on the moment the gang tells our hero to grab a young girl. It’s the turning point. Suddenly, he’s not just a guy watching from the shadows; he’s got to act. The tension is… well, it’s mostly just people talking loudly at each other in dusty rooms. 🤠

There’s a specific moment where the gang realizes he’s a rat, and it feels a bit rushed. One minute they’re all drinking coffee, the next they’re drawing pistols. No one really reacts like they’re actually shocked. It’s more like, "Oh, hey, I guess we’re fighting now."

Odd Little Details

• The horses look bored. Like, really bored.
• The hats never seem to fall off, even during the big scuffles.
• The background extras in the saloon scenes are clearly just waiting for lunch.
• I’m pretty sure I saw the same rock formation in three different states.

It’s not as polished as The Donovan Affair, but it has that weird, grainy charm. The dialogue feels like it was written on the back of a napkin five minutes before filming started. Sometimes that’s actually refreshing, you know?

You can tell when the budget was running low because the wide shots start getting really fuzzy. It’s almost like the camera was trying to hide from the lack of action. Nobody here is winning an Oscar, but they’re all trying their best to look mean and rugged. It’s sweet, in a weird way.

If you like these kinds of movies, you know exactly what you’re getting. It’s not going to change your life. It’s just going to sit there on the screen, flickering away, until it ends and you go make a sandwich. Sometimes that’s enough. 🥪