Stars: Burt Lancaster, Bruce Davison, Richard Jaeckel, Lloyd Bochner, Karl Swenson, Karl Swenson, Jorge Luke, Joaquin Martinez, Douglas Watson

Director: Robert Aldrich

Summary: In this story of the Old West, Lancaster is assigned to aid the US Cavalry in tracking down the notorious Apache warrior Ulzana and his band of renegade Indians.

Angered at their mistreatment by whites, a group of renegade Apaches escape from their reservation and embark on a rampage of murder, rape and destruction. A veteran army scout, McIntosh (Bruce Lancaster), and an unseasoned young cavalry officer, DeBuin (Bruce Davison), are assigned to track down the malcontented natives. As DeBuin, McIntosh, and their party venture into the unfriendly landscape, issues start to surface about to the morality of their extermination mission. Soon the party of supposedly civil white men are fighting amongst themselves, divided about the task at hand. As much as the moralists struggle, their efforts to stop Ulzana's Raid seem fruitless. On the heels of DIRTY DOZEN and WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE, director Robert Aldrich delivers another smash film. Intelligent and edgy, ULZANA'S RAID features all of the standard Aldrich storytelling techniques: characters full of suppressed madness and prejudices, a moral dilemma, and a loaded gun with a slippery trigger waiting to be squeezed. Add the scorching heat of the desert as a backdrop and Aldrich conjures forth another masterpiece: ULZANA'S RAID.

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Reviewed by: davybozal24-7
Posted on September 4, 2006 7:14 AM

Nice western with plenty of action and one of Burt Lancaster's best.

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Robert Aldrich pulls no punches in his unrelentingly brutal story of a reign of terror perpetrated on Arizona settlers by a bitter Apache warrior and the cavalry's frustrated attempts to stop him. Burt Lancaster, a longtime Aldrich collaborator and star of the similar 1954 Western Apache, brings his laconic, quietly authoritative presence to the role of McIntosh, a blunt-speaking, introspective old army scout with more respect than hate for his enemy. A very young Bruce Davison is the green-as-a-sapling Lieutenant DeBuin, fresh from West Point and filled with Christian ideals, thrown into the field against the vicious, tactically brilliant Ulzana. DeBuin is shocked and appalled at Ulzana's brutality--torturing male homesteaders to death, raping the women, leaving a trail of mutilated corpses--and as he struggles to understand Ulzana his values of Christian charity soon melt into racist hatred. Ulzana's tactics were familiar to Americans in 1972 who followed the war in Vietnam and the guerrilla attacks of the Vietcong. Like The Wild Bunch before it, Ulzana's Raid removes the sentimentality of Western ideals in its harsh portrayal of the violent world, though unlike Sam Peckinpah, Aldrich leaves the violence off-screen and allows the audience to see only the horrific aftermath. (These scenes are often graphic and not recommended for the squeamish.) It's a disturbing and powerful film, where the concept of good guys and bad guys becomes meaningless and the battle between cultures ultimately comes down to survival in a harsh world. --Sean Axmaker

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Year:	1972
Release Date:	October 6, 2003
Runtime:	96 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	820 312 1
Keywords:	Raid, Westerns, Ulzana's
Genre:	Westerns