
Set in winter in the Old West. Charismatic but dumb John McCabe arrives in a young Pacific Northwest town to set up a whorehouse/tavern. The shrewd Mrs. Miller, a professional madam, arrives soon after construction begins. She offers to use her experience to help McCabe run his business, while sharing in the profits. The whorehouse thrives and McCabe and Mrs. Miller draw closer, despite their conflicting intelligences and philosophies. Soon, however, the mining deposits in th... (Full plot summary below)
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Set in winter in the Old West. Charismatic but dumb John McCabe arrives in a young Pacific Northwest town to set up a whorehouse/tavern. The shrewd Mrs. Miller, a professional madam, arrives soon after construction begins. She offers to use her experience to help McCabe run his business, while sharing in the profits. The whorehouse thrives and McCabe and Mrs. Miller draw closer, despite their conflicting intelligences and philosophies. Soon, however, the mining deposits in the town attract the attention of a major corporation, which wants to buy out McCabe along with the rest. He refuses, and his decision has major repercussions for him, Mrs. Miller, and the town.
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| Film Freak CentralWalter ChawThe film invites the sort of active participation that defines the best, most personal criticism of the arts. |
| Q Network Film DeskJames Kendricka moving portrait of how the little man, no matter how confident in himself, is usually at the mercy of others with more money and more power and less scruples |
| GuardianXan BrooksIf anything, Robert Altman's self-styled "anti-western" looks even richer, stranger and more daring than it did when it first appeared back in 1971. |
| Empire MagazineColin KennedyThey say that great actors are never knowingly caught acting; Altman's best movies are similarly effortless - experiences to be lived in, rather than simply watched. |
| Combustible CelluloidJeffrey M. AndersonAltman and cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond present the film in grainy browns, as if the film were painted on a fence, and the endless white snow has never felt more textile, or more appropriate. |
| Journal and Courier (Lafayette, IN)Bob BloomBeatty, Christie and Altman make an unbeatable combination. |
| Slant MagazineEd GonzalezIt could be the most authentic representation of wilderness life ever put on screen. |
| Salon.comCharles TaylorThe movie haunts you like a ballad whose tune you remember but whose words hang just beyond reach. And like listening to a ballad, we know the outcome of the events we're watching was foretold long ago, but we're helpless to do anything but surrender to the tale. |
| PajibaJeremy C. FoxAltman's brilliant deconstruction of the Western is a classic, one of his most assured works. |
| The Age (Australia)Jake WilsonRobert Altman's wintry 1971 anti-Western gives Warren Beatty one of his best roles as the doomed gambler McCabe: boastful, shy, foolish, altogether lovable. |