This 1977 Charles Bronson Western Is A Bizarre Experience You Can Stream For Free

Early in his career, Charles Bronson appeared in a classic horror film before a low-budget crime thriller actually turned him into a star. After that, the actor made an entire career out of his rugged yet nuanced anti-hero persona, starring in actioners of all types while also managing to maintain a sense of vulnerability to his otherwise stern and intense characters. Of course, with Bronson having gained notoriety in the 1960s and '70s, there are plenty of Westerns on the man's resume. The genre wouldn't truly die out until the end of the '70s, and Bronson became as much of a Western legend as he did an action hero.

Though he's best known as everyman-turned-ruthless vigilante Paul Kersey in the "Death Wish" movies, Bronson also forged an enviable career as one of the best Western actors of all time. From Sergio Leone's seminal 1968 work "Once Upon a Time in the West" to John Sturges' celebrated "Seven Samurai" remake "The Magnificent Seven," Bronson's Western filmography is as esteemed as they come. What you might not hear so much about, however, is the strange, offbeat Western version of the "Moby Dick" legend he made in 1977.

"The White Buffalo" saw Bronson play a legendary lawman obsessed with hunting down the titular beast. It's a fairly simple premise, but the movie itself is a strange and often surreal experience, punctuated by dream sequences and questionable practical effects. It's also a one-of-a-kind example of a genre attempting to update itself at a time when the Western was falling out of favor. That means "The White Buffalo" deserves a watch if you're yet to see it, and luckily, it's streaming for free over on Tubi.

Though "The White Buffalo" isn't the most well-known, it is one of the best Charles Bronson movies. This 1977 effort was the actor's second collaboration with director J. Lee Thompson, who had directed Bronson in "St. Ives" the year prior. Whereas that crime thriller was a fairly formulaic exercise that failed to impress critics, the pair's second collaboration was anything but formulaic, though it too debuted to less than stellar reviews.

"The White Buffalo" stars Bronson as famed lawman Wild Bill Hickok, whose dreams of a giant white buffalo have become so all-consuming that Hickok has resolved to find the beast no matter what. The film follows him as he traverses the West in search of the buffalo, which may or may not be a legend. Along the way, he teams up with Lakota warrior Crazy Horse, played by Will Sampson, who, a year prior, portrayed the stoic Chief Bromden in "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." As it turns out, the giant buffalo killed Crazy Horse's daughter, prompting the Lakota leader to launch his quest for vengeance, which ultimately leads both Hickock and his unlikely comrade to question their assumptions about the other.

While such a premise could have made for a haunting and reflective take on a Western story, much of that potential was undercut by the titular mammal, who is seen on screen in the form of a constructed buffalo that was, according to Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Monthly Film Bulletin, a "clumsy mechanical contrivance resembling a giant shaggy toy whose roars bear an uncomfortable similarity to the sounds of a growling stomach." But there's something about the mismatch of janky practical effects and the movie's surrealist ambition that makes it at the very least an interesting watch.

"The White Buffalo" isn't as surreal or subversive as something like 1970's "El Topo," a disturbing work credited as the first Acid Western and a film to which Roger Ebert gave a perfect score. But it also isn't your typical Old West adventure, striving for more through its fantastical elements. While it doesn't always succeed, it's a wild ride. If you do need to know the Rotten Tomatoes score, it's 17%. But that critic score is based on just six reviews and isn't really representative of much. The film has more positive reviews on Letterboxd and was certainly worthy of more praise than critics gave it at the time of its release.

More than anything, "The White Buffalo" is worth a watch, even if you're just interested to see where the Western genre was in the mid-70s. This was when the revisionist Western truly came to the fore, with the standard archetypes of heroes and villains fully deconstructed for a mass audience that was similarly questioning their own leaders in the wake of the Watergate scandal and the increasingly apparent failure of the 1960s counterculture to stem the rise of commercialism and corporate greed. Bronson's obsessive lawman, haunted by dreams of a wild beast that may or may not even exist, is a far cry from the swaggering gunmen of traditional Westerns, and though the loner figure was a longstanding Western trope, Bronson's version was a truly unique take on that trope, helped greatly by the actor's own inimitable edginess. In "The White Buffalo," then, you can see one of the more interesting examples of a genre attempting to evolve with the times. 

"The White Buffalo" is streaming for free over on Tubi.