Bad Company

Bad Company is a 1972 American Western film directed by Robert Benton, who also co-wrote the film with David Newman. It stars Barry Brown and Jeff Bridges as two of a group of young men that flee the draft during the American Civil War to seek their fortune and freedom on the unforgiving American frontier. This acid western attempts in many ways to demythologize the American West in its portrayal of young men forced by circumstance and drawn by romanticized accounts to forge new lives for themselves on the wrong side of the law. Their initial eagerness to be outlaws soon abates, however, when the boys are confronted with the realities of preying on others in a nation ravaged by war and exploitation. A group of soldiers pulls up to a modest white house and goes inside. Moments later, they exit, dragging a boy in a dress who is frantically resisting them. The soldiers throw the boy in a wagon with other boys, one of whom is also dressed as a woman to avoid conscription. At the Dixon...