The Villain (1979)

Continuing my plan to watch every Arnold Schwarzenegger movie in order, I come to 1979's Cactus Jack/The Villain.Plot In A Paragraph: Charming Jones (Anne Margaret) has to make it from the Train Station to her ancestral homestead to collect her inheritance. The Handsome Stranger (Arnie) acts as her escort and bodyguard. Cactus Jack (Kirk Douglas) has been hired to stop them bothYou can see why Arnie thought this would be a good career move in 1979. Kirk Douglas and Anne Margaret are Hollywood royalty and director Hal Needham was hot back then too. Smokey & The Bandit was the 2nd highest grossing movie of 1977 (second only to Star Wars) and Hooper (again Starring Burt Reynolds) was the 6th highest grossing of 1978. The problem was both stars were considered past their glory days, and Needham's success as a director was down to his work with Burt Reynolds. Once Reynolds fell from the A List, Needham only directed two more theatrical releases. This movie is littered with nods to Reynolds and Smokey & The Bandit. If you realise it's intended as a spoof of Westerns and Wile E Coyote cartoons, it has its moments and can raise a smile now and again. But Needham isn't a good director, his movies are always full of silly mistakes. Douglas seems to be having fun sending the cowboy image up, and Anne Margaret was still as gorgeous as ever. But Arnie's performance as the dim witted Handsome Stranger is a fun one. A lot of people didn't get the joke, and it failed at the box office. Needham's first failure at the Box Office as a director. Coincidentally it's the first movie he directed that didn't star Reynolds. The movie warrants just a couple of lines in Arnie's autobiography. He admits he took the role simply for more experience in front of the camera, and says "My character was called Handsome Stranger, and the rest of the movie was just as lame." The failure of this movie didn't really hurt anybody involved, Kirk Douglas and Anne Margaret still continued to act regularly, Hal Needham made Smokey & The Bandit 2 and Arnie.... Well his next theatrical release was a movie called Conan The Barbarian.

Just saw The Villain for the first time and i got to say the 0% at Rotten Tomatoes is so freaking wrong. This is basically a Cartoon with Kirk Douglas as Coyote chasing Arnold Schwarzenegger & Ann Margret who could be described as Road Runner 'Beep Beep' it's pretty funny how the ending used the Bugs Bunny Theme which i found hilarious. If people except logic they will definitely be disappointed but for everyone else who appreciated the cartoons and need to laugh a little bit then this movie is for you all. Arnold as Handsome Stranger was the best part of the movie for me he was hilarious and not your typical Arnold movie to see him in and Kirk Douglas as Cactus Jack was great as well and pretty funny. If you love Arnold Movies you definitely going to love this one also.

The Villain starts with some solid laughs, but only becomes an overdone film that you just want to end! My friend told me about this movie. We both have never seen it before and it had a good concept so we decided to watch it!The first act is great! The laughs are solid, and, well it was fun. Then it was all downhill from there! Bottom Line: If you want to watch this, than watch the first 30 minutes and watch the scenes where Douglas tries to stop Arnold and Ann-Margaret! P.S. Arnold's outfit is one of the best things in the Movie!3/10

I'm not quite sure why Kirk Douglas took the part of a live Wile E. Coyote in the film villain other than to say that he had now tried the slapstick comedy genre. But in this case the frustrated coyote is not matched up with the beeping road runner. His adversary is Dudley DooRight in the person of Arnold Schwarzneggar, the Handsome Stranger. Yes folks, that's his character name.We've got a third cartoon character in the mix, Ann-Margret doing a prototype of Jessica Rabbit. Annie's really showing off the stuff today with bosoms akimbo, she's got every member of the cast panting after her with the exceptions of Strother Martin who is her father and still sees Daddy's little girl and Arnie whom she pants after, but who doesn't show the slightest interest.The bulk of the film is taken up with Kirk as villainous Cactus Jack and his horse Whiskey, doing their best to stop Arnie and Ann and rob them of a large sum of money from banker Jack Elam to Strother Martin. It's here where all the comparisons to the road runner cartoons take place.I'm sure Kirk Douglas liked the change of pace, burlesquing his own western image. And he had a tough assignment because the majority of his scenes are alone and the dialog was spoken to his horse. Maybe Mr. Ed should have been cast in the role. If anybody noticed the name of the horse Whiskey is the same name that Kirk Douglas used for his horse in his acclaimed Lonely Are The Brave.Lest you think that because this is a road runner film the ending is a road runner ending. Let's just say that Jessica Rabbit has her needs and priorities as well.