When You Comin' Back, Red Ryder?

A greasy diner at the apex of a one-horse New Mexico town is the primary setting for one of the most unfairly critically savaged movies of the 1970s. Within this diner, a dangerously impetuous drifter reeling with post-'Nam hostilities(Marjoe Gortner)and his acquiescent, unassuming girlfriend(Candy Clark)subdue a number of people at gunpoint, and proceed to emotionally and physically terrorize them.

A raw and disconcerting rural American nightmare, RED RYDER was a target for much critical assault upon its initial theatrical release. While its certainly not without its peccadilloes(the supine staginess of its exposition, for instance), it does impart potent moments of nerve-rattling discomposure, and puts forth some penetrating and incisive character studies which are dramatically vitalized by an able cast.

All things considered, this is a blemished film which warrants reinvestigation, and deserves some long-withheld acknowledgments.

6/10.