The film transparently mourns the dissolution of a previously stalwart Hollywood genre. Local ranches are becoming outposts for corporate concerns, and the title character stands by, grouchy and forlorn, as his cohorts slowly give up, including his closest companion, played with revelatory cheeriness by legendary heavy Palance. Fraker's direction is purposeful, occasionally a bit too slow, as if he himself was reluctant to let the story, and with it an entire mode of storytelling, fade to black.