Valdez Is Coming

Valdez Is Coming (1971) is a Burt Lancaster western you can watch online on iFILM. Directed by Edwin Sherin from an Elmore Leonard novel, it stars Lancaster as Bob Valdez, an aging Mexican-American constable who keeps the peace until peace stops being possible.

Valdez is goaded into shooting a man whom the rich rancher Frank Tanner has falsely accused of murder. Guilt-stricken, he tries to do one small decent thing: collect a hundred dollars for the dead man's widow. It only seems fair that Tanner, who started it, should pay. Tanner has a different idea of fair. He has the old lawman beaten, mocked and run off. So Valdez digs out the army uniform and the buffalo rifle from his soldiering days and goes after Tanner alone, one quiet man tracking a small army across the high country.

This is a lean, vengeful early-seventies western where the humiliated underdog turns out to be a deadly marksman. Lancaster, past fifty, plays fatigue and wounded dignity better than any gunplay, and you catch young Richard Jordan and Hector Elizondo in supporting roles. A solid pick for anyone who likes their westerns built on honor and payback. Stream Valdez Is Coming (1971) online on iFILM.