It leaves itself wide open to charges of pretentiousness. Yet "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" is so entertaining and so vigorously performed, especially by Newman in the title role, that its pretensions become part of its robust, knock-about style.
With a two-fisted script by John Milius (who later wrote Apocalypse Now and Red Dawn), Huston and Newman created a raucous, Rabelaisian, revisionist western of the sort popular at the time.
70
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
Paul Newman has lots of fun playing the legendary hanging judge, and Ava Gardner is a ravishing Lily Langtry, the object of Bean's unrequited love. [18 Aug 1991, p.6]
It's an incredible lapse in a movie of this size and ambition - but they've failed to make Judge Roy Bean interesting. He's one-dimensional, predictable, propped up by Paul Newman's acting style, with no personality of his own.
50
Chicago Reader
Chicago Reader
Newman does a remarkable John Huston impression, and screenwriter John Milius demonstrates once again that he went to film school.
A rambling revisionist western whose episodic nature was only marginally successful and which didn't come close to BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID on any level.