The Missouri Breaks

The Missouri Breaks (1976) — watch online on iFILM Arthur Penn's revisionist western starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson. 126 minutes. One of the few films where two actors of that weight share the screen — and neither one blinks.

Tom Logan (Nicholson) runs a quiet horse-rustling operation near the Missouri river, careful enough to stay ahead of the law. When rancher David Braxton hangs one of his crew, Logan shifts approach: he buys a small farm right next to Braxton's land and starts stealing from inside. Braxton's answer is Robert E. Lee Clayton (Brando) — a hired regulator who shows up in a dress, holds conversations with his horse, and works through Logan's gang with no particular hurry and no remorse. Randy Quaid, Frederic Forrest, and Harry Dean Stanton round out the crew on Logan's side, each one wearing his own specific brand of doom.

Penn made this film in 1976 and pushed the western off its usual rails — there is no clean heroism here, just two dangerous men on a collision course through a landscape that has already stopped pretending to be civilised. Stream The Missouri Breaks (1976) on iFILM.