Welcome to Hard Times (film)

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times thought Aldo Ray's performance was "fascinating and hypnotizing": "I would guess, in all his times in Western movies, Mr. Fonda has never seen a more wild and implausible badman than this jughead whom Mr. Ray plays. Not only does he knock the tops off bottles instead of pulling out the corks when he wants to guzzle a couple of quarts of whisky (that's a standard badman ploy), but he ravishes bar girls, shoots his own horse and guns down Elisha Cook Jr. with even more cold-blooded arrogance than Jack Palance did in Shane."[3]

Variety panned the film with contempt for Kennedy's "inept" direction and script. It dismissed Rule's performance as "unsatisfactory," comparing it to a "Method school version" of the iconic Western-movie star Maureen O'Hara. Though taking note of the star-studded supporting cast—noting Edgar Buchanan's performance as the "best" among them, and giving credit for "comic relief" to Wynn and the saloon girls -- Variety said the collection of "many pro names" simply underscored a "lack of depth and perception" by the "script and direction."[4]

The cinematography by Harry Stradling Jr. was highly regarded.[3]

The movie continues to be critiqued by some reviewers as being awkward and unsettling, with an ending that is unsatisfying[5] (even "nihilistic").[6] While noting there is not a consensus among reviewers, Rotten Tomatoes audience scores it at 39%.[7] However, some modern reviewers describe it as "better than average" for a Western.[5]

Craig Butler in the All Movie Guide notes that the movie "tends to divide audiences" along the lines of whether or not they're expecting, and preferring, a conventional Western (virtue triumphs through justifiable violence), or are attracted to a very contradictory type of movie. For the latter, Butler contends the film offers much "to ponder and to study," but notes that the movie is a "downer" that arguably puts most of its effort into conveying a "message" rather than providing entertainment. Butler describes the film as a revisionist Western, typical of the 1960s, disassembling the classic Western, and reassembling it in ways that didn't always follow the traditions of the genre.[8]

Butler makes positive comments about the performances of Fonda, Ray, Wynn, Oates, Buchanan, Paige and Pyle.[8] Timeout concurs that the supporting cast is "immaculate" and notes Fonda's performance as "intriguing."[6]