Scott LeBrun What we have here is a generally compelling, viscerally effective Western drama, the first of six teamings between actor Charles Bronson and filmmaker Michael Winner. Written by Gerald Wilson, it spins the yarn of Pardon Chato (Bronson), a half-Apache man who guns down a bigoted sheriff in self defense. A character named Quincey Whitmore (a rock solid Jack Palance) gets together a fairly large posse to hunt Chato down, but they are led into forbidding territory where their quarry seems to hold all the cards.Fear, ignorance, lust, and hatred rear their ugly heads in "Chato's Land", as good as any an examination of the poor attitudes that white men harbored towards Indians. Quincey is a lone dissenting voice; even while taking the mission seriously, he at least has respect for, and some understanding of, the man his team is hunting. Unfortunately, among this group we have the Hooker family, consisting of a horny creep, Earl (Richard Jordan), and a thoroughly racist heel (Simon Oakland), who ends up wanting revenge.Winner assembles here a very fine male ensemble (the kind of thing that Walter Hill would end up doing so well several years later), one in which women have not much of a role to play. (Sadly, the one woman who does, Chato's girl (Sonia Rangan), is molested and left tied up in the nude to serve as bait.) The cast features very reliable stars and character actors. Bronson offers one of his most stoic and mystical roles. He has VERY little dialogue to utter. Palance and Oakland are standouts; also co-starring are James Whitmore, Richard Basehart, Ralph Waite, Victor French, William Watson, Roddy McMillan, Paul Young, and Raul Castro.Excellent music by Jerry Fielding and vibrant photography also help to make this good entertainment. Be warned, however: it does get rather grim, racking up a large body count by the time it has finished.Seven out of 10.

joeventuraa This was Rambo...guy minds his own business and is hassled by the law. Then a posse is formed to get him and one by one, they are led into demise. Bronson was ripped in this movie. The guy looked the part. My dad said towards the end, "He didn't need to memorize many lines." He didn't have to, his physique and look did all the talking! This is a guy's flick, but there are deeper themes like the revenge, greed, lust, and the evil all men have in their hearts. It's there is you are willing to see it. Another movie that demonstrated man is sinful and at the core, we are all capable of murder. Grim? Yes it is. The answer to man's dilemma is in the movie if you are willing to hear.

Red-Barracuda The storyline to Chato's Land is simple as can be. A half-breed Indian is harassed by a redneck sheriff while having a drink in a bar. He is forced to kill the racist and is then pursued out into his desert homeland by a posse hell bent on retribution. Very little time is spent on setting the scene; the basic set-up is underway in less than five minutes. The director is Michael Winner, who it's probably fair to say is famous for having a somewhat sledgehammer approach to film-making. His style is very unsubtle and his movies are often pretty tough, violent and unpolitically correct. You could almost view him as an English version of the Italian director Umberto Lenzi. As a result, his films are a lot of fun.This one is almost like a blueprint for Winner's later box office smash Death Wish in many ways. Both star Charles Bronson as a man whose wife has been raped by thugs and who chooses an eye for an eye style of violent retribution to put matters right. You could also definitely say that Chato's Land also fits into the revisionist western category too – although admittedly with a healthy slice of exploitation content added in for good measure – as it can quite easily be read as another early 70's Vietnam allegory. American might and arrogance comes a cropper against a less well equipped enemy. The invaders have far more gun power but they fail to take into account the environment they enter – the land understood perfectly by the enemy they seek. They commit various atrocities along the way such as setting a village on fire and then finally rape and murder. So there are underlying themes in this one but you don't really need to know any of this historical context to enjoy it because this works just great as a western with plenty of violent action.It's not immediately obvious but this is a Euro Western. It was shot in Spain but with British money. As a result it's maybe no surprise that it resembles the Italian spaghetti westerns in some ways with its amoral characters and violence. Charles Bronson is the star name in the title role. He looks and acts the part just fine but he has virtually no dialogue and the main focus is squarely on the squabbling posse led by Jack Palance. Chato is always on the periphery, which works well as we never know when he will strike. He begins by toying with his pursuers, leading them on a dance but he changes tack after the rape of his wife and murder of his son and seeks bloody revenge. The posse are, therefore, a very unsympathetic group. But they aren't all one dimensionally evil – there are the bad-bad guys but also the good-bad guys. There are a lot of grey areas and the motivation behind each man varies quite a bit. And the order in which they are bumped off is not in the least predictable either.Chato's Land is a pretty straightforward and enjoyable revenge western though. It's sometimes a little rough around the edges it has to be admitted. Occasionally it appears to have been edited with a hacksaw – for instance there is no build up whatsoever to the sudden arrival of the cowboys at Chato's family home – but this isn't really that much of an issue overall and in some ways adds to the raw feel of the movie. It's a film I have seen several times over the years and I always find it to be pretty successful and satisfying.

Norbert Palotas Though I haven't seen all of Bronson's movies I'm sure this is one of his best performance. I was wondering why is it so magnificent and I realised that it has a special mood and of course it has Bronson himself. By the way he was a perfect choice for this role equally inwardly and outwardly. Jack Palance was almost as brilliant as Charles, the only thing I didn't really like him is that he was the bad guy. Being a western-revenge movie, its story isn't full of surprises but Michael Winner did his best -like each time- and he made a wonderful but serious movie. Finally, I would like to thank Robert Paynter (camera-man) for the amazing panorama, sure he hadn't forgotten to have a look around.Taking it all round, I think Chato's Land is not just one of Bronson's best pictures but it is one of the best westerns I've ever seen.