El Dorado

A hired gun returns on hearing that an old friend, now the town sheriff, has taken to drink. A farming family and a wealthy landowner are at odds over water rights. Howard Hawks had made almost exactly this film seven years earlier; El Dorado is a deliberate rebuilding of his own picture. The difference is tone: here both leads are old, injured and not up to it, and the film treats that as a real limit rather than a joke. John Wayne and Robert Mitchum lead, with James Caan as the young one. It is one of Hawks's late westerns. Who it's for: those who like classic westerns and films two veteran actors carry between them. Who it's not for: anyone who has just watched Rio Bravo; the two share almost the same skeleton.