Valdez is Coming (1971)

Best Quote: Where did you learn how to shoot so well.  Hunting Buffalo?
- No. Apache.
- When?
- When I didn't know any better.

Burt Lancaster stars in this brutal, low-budget Western about a Mexican American deputy seeking revenge and justice.  Unfortunately, Lancaster isn't a believable Mexican-American or a good action hero.

Story? Chock full of action and only 90 minutes, its the standard action movie plot. The bad guys mistreat an average Joe, but they've picked on the wrong man.  Y'see, Valdez is a US Army Vet.  He knows how to shoot and track better than anyone - and he starts picking off the bad guys.

Why did Lancaster do it?  Probably the racial politics.  I've never seen a movie that so clearly sets up the evil white man vs. women & people of color trope.   Literally every white man is a villain or a weakling,  and every noble victim/good person is non-white.  Subtle it ain't.  The movie sets this trope up at the very start. The bad guy  thinks an ex-army man is the deserter that killed his friend. When Valdez goes to confirm this, the bad guy sends one of  his white henchman to kill the man, in violation of Valdez's promise of no gun-play.  And that ex-army man turns out to be....black.  Before that, his Apache wife, goes out under gunfire to get some water. The bullets ( shot by a snickering white henchman) barely miss her. But she shows more courage then a medal of honor winner.

And the bad guy's wife, starts out bad - but that's only because she believed his white man lies.  She becomes "politically correct" after Bob Valdez talks to her. Burt Lancaster was a hard-core lefty who loved this kind of thing.

Summary: Starring one of my favorite supporting actors, Frank Silvera.  Valdez is full of action but has a miscast lead, and a mediocre story/script.  The part needed Charles Bronson - not 58 year-old Elmer Gantry.