Breakheart Pass

Charles Bronson and Archie Moore in Breakheart Pass (dir. Tom Gries, 1975).

This midseventies Charles Bronson vehicle feels greater than the sum of its parts to me, maybe partly because I remember seeing it when it first came out, and how it completely satisfied on that popcorn matinee level of midseventies Charles Bronson vehicles. Ben Johnson has so much presence that it's easy to overlook how fundamentally uninteresting his character is. Robert Tessier is a terrifying villain, but he's only in the film for a few minutes total. All I really remembered from my first viewing--what stuck with me over the years--was the train (as well as the fight on top of it) and the northwest locations. The constant shots of the train barreling toward its destination, a prosaic sense of snowy danger and stock costumes.