Great Film overall

An Exercise In Nonsense

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Cactus Jack has all the ingredients for a cool comedy - Hal Needham at the helm, capable actors (Schwarzenegger can be used very effectively in comedies), gorgeous settings, fun costumes and a nice soundtrack - but after an OK start things get more and more repetitive, predictable and, simply, tedious.The idea of doing a real-life version of a LooneyTunes cartoon is interesting, and Kirk Douglas really tried to breathe some life into his Wile E Coyote, but the dynamic and rhythm are way off - most gags last about five times as long as in the cartoon if not longer - and stretching such a 7 minute cartoon to feature length without adding anything at least resembling a decent story or interesting characters makes Cactus Jack nearly painful to watch.

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.

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 am astonished that no user has noticed that the horse named Whiskey in this little western - as far as we can call that a western - has already been used in another Kirk Douglas movie - as an actor, not a director, of course - A very great one. One of the best movie in which he has played in his whole carrier...A notorious modern western, shot in 1962...A western that reminds the likes of Sam Peckinpah style...A western in black and white,about the end of the old West...In this film, Kirk Douglas's horse's name was "Whiskey" too. And no one has noticed it. Unbelievable !!!!You can't miss the title of this film. It would be an insult to tell you what it is. You know what I mean. Or if not, leave IMDb now, you don't deserve to stay longer in this wonderful movie lover world.I can't say anything more about this cartoon like excellent comedy action western. All the users have already told exactly what it must be said.