One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
★★½ — One-Eyed Jacks (1961)
There's a version of One-Eyed Jacks that I think is genuinely great. I can see it in there, lurking behind the bloat, and that's precisely what makes watching it such a frustrating, conflicted experience. Because what's good here is really good. And what's indulgent is really indulgent.
This is the only film Marlon Brando ever directed, and you can feel his personality stamped all over it, for better and for worse. The man was incapable of being boring on screen, and his performance here is no exception. He commands your attention in every single scene, doing that thing he does where you're not entirely sure what he's thinking, and somehow that uncertainty pulls you in closer rather than pushing you away. The rest of the cast matches him well too. This isn't a film where one towering lead performance drowns out everyone else. There's real quality across the board.
The story itself is solid. It's a revenge Western at heart, and it earns its place in the genre. What strikes you watching it now is how clearly it planted seeds that other filmmakers harvested for decades afterwards. You're watching scenes and thinking, right, I've seen that, and that, and that, and then you remember this came first. The influence it had is genuinely significant, and that's worth acknowledging. The soundtrack helps too, sweeping and confident in the way the best Westerns are.
But here's my problem. This film runs well over two hours, and it did not need to. Not even close. There's somewhere in the region of an hour that could have been cut without losing anything essential to the story or the characters. Some sequences just keep going, past the point where they've done their job, as if nobody had the nerve, or the authority, to tell Brando to wrap it up. When you're the director and the star, I suppose there's nobody in the room with enough clout to push back. The pacing suffers badly for it. What should feel propulsive goes slack in places, and you find yourself checking how much is left when you really shouldn't be.
It's the kind of film where I sit down to write about it and I genuinely wrestle with the rating. Three and a half stars feels both fair and slightly unkind at the same time. The ingredients are there for something exceptional. Brando the actor delivers. The story has real bones to it. The whole thing looks gorgeous. But Brando the director, on this evidence, needed someone to rein him in, and nobody did.
If you love classic Westerns, I'd say it's absolutely worth your time. I loved Rio Bravo and Ride Lonesome, both from around the same era, and neither of them outstays their welcome the way this one does. That comparison isn't meant to be cruel. It's just that when a film has this much going for it, the waste stings more than it would otherwise.
Watch it. Appreciate it. Just maybe keep the remote nearby.
Three and a half stars.
Rating: ★★½ | Year: 1961 | Watched: 2025-04-20
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
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Watch in the US
Stream: fuboTV · Philo · Starz Apple TV channel
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Related on Movies With Macca
More with Marlon Brando: The Godfather (1972)
More from the 1960s: Viy (1967) · Persona (1966) · Carnival of Souls (1962) · Daisies (1966)
More western: The Ox-Bow Incident (1943) · Rio Bravo (1959) · Ride Lonesome (1959) · The Great Train Robbery (1903)
More drama: Viy (1967) · Wonder (2017) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Beautiful Boy (2018)
