Customer Reviews

J.W.Coop

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Having grown up around Rodeo in the early 50s and 60s, I found J.W. Coop to be a magic carpet ride into the past when Rodeo hadn't been tainted by big money sponsors and television. One more thing that made this movie enjoyable to watch was that it was filmed on location in two of my home towns I lived in Porterville and Springville, California, as a very young man. Infact the young, teen, blonde girl stirring the pot in the movie (don't blink or you'll miss her) was one of my friends and she still lives in Porterville. Anyway, if you want to watch a good A- Rodeo movie with a small town feel to it, then pick up this solid, well written movie. One more thing, I had forgotten the movie, so I was really surprised by the ending. No special effects, just good editing and good writing. I felt I was watching my father rodeo again. He never made it big, but it was fun to see him try to earn some money doing what he loved.

Growing up in the Mid_West, the concept of "art' film was quite foreign to me in 1971. The first time I saw J.W. Coop, it struck me like a thunderbolt. Lots of ambin' around, reaction shots, quiet confidence, pseudo-documentary style, unspoken sub text...WOW.

A labor love for Cliff Robertson, JW COOP is an indie-like movie developed in the 1970's studio system, where titles like POSEIDON ADVENTURE and TOWERING INFERNO were the only things that made sense at the time.

As a result, studio-type compromises are evident throughout--Christina Ferrare is atrocious as the hippie-chick who interjects JW's dust covered mind-set to the present. I'm certain the original script-by Gary Cartwright and the ingenious Bud Shrake was likely funnier...and edgier.

What's left is still engaging, and the rest of the supporting cast is solid, the story interesting--spiced with wonderful little vignettes throughout. I highly recommend.

Excellent movie, would buy again.Also would recommend this movie to others.the movie has a lot of rodeo sense in it.

One of my favoarite actors and the movie is good until the ending. Not my kind of entertainment.

The title character in JW COOP has spent the last ten years in prison for writing a bad check. It wasn't his fault, we learn, and the sentence probably would have been much shorter if he hadn't hit that guard, or sheriff, or whatever authority figure was crowding him. It doesn't matter. Our hero has been out of circulation for ten years for a non-violent offense, and it's going to take a lot of adjusting for him to adapt to a radically changed society.
Counterculture heroes were popular in the late 60s to the early `70s (JW COOP was released in 1972.) Apparently Cliff Robertson was powerful, or persuasive, enough to push this one through. Not only does he play the title character, he's credited as the primary writer and director, as well.
JW COOP is very much a product of its time. Its attitude, images and subject matter make it feel old. Carob drinking and soybean munching hippies are curious and attractive people. They're young gurus with The Answer. Authority figures - The Man - are dumb, loutish, venal, corrupt.
Coop is too old to be a hippie, too non-conformist to feel comfortable with authority, too long out of circulation to know where he fits in at all. So the movie is really a journey of discovery. If the script had been stronger, if a half-dozen cliches had been rejected rather than included, if they'd edited about twenty minutes of fat, JW COOP might have been a classic. As it is, it can go in the bin with Billy Jack, Then Came Bronson, and suchlike films and television series that sought to stick it to the Man.
One of the biggest problems concerns the writing. Not only is there a deadly lack of dramatic tension, but the characters are loosely drawn and poorly realized. Cristina Ferrare plays Robertson's hippie girlfriend, and it stinks like she's giving a bad performance, but I think it's simply because she isn't given much to do beyond braid black licorice into peace symbols. Even the great actress Geraldine Page, here gigged out in Hush Hush Sweet Charolette fright makeup, seems to flounder while searching for her demented mother character.
An audience can survive vague characters if the dramatic content is riveting enough, but it's not. We can even survive that if the lead character is compelling, but the only reason we care about Coop is because he's played by a charismatic movie star.
If you remember the 70s and want to experience a retro flashback, you might enjoy JW COOP.

When I was in the Navy, several of us were invited to a rodeo near the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. It was part of the filming for J. W. Coop. I keep looking for myself in the film. Things were moving too fast.