Blood on the Moon

Directed by Robert Wise, Blood on the Moon follows Robert Mitchum’s Jim Garry as he’s drawn into an increasingly violent conflict between an Arizona cattle rancher and local homesteaders. It’s a seemingly straight-forward setup for a film that does, for the most part, remain hopelessly convoluted and devoid of interesting, attention-grabbing elements throughout, as Wise, working from Lillie Hayward and Harold Shumate’s screenplay, delivers a sluggish effort that’s rarely, if ever, able to generate the sort of tension and excitement for which the filmmaker is clearly striving – with the picture’s failure especially disappointing given Nicholas Musuraca’s dark, film noir-esque visuals and a predictably commanding turn by Mitchum. And although the movie admittedly does improve slightly in its comparatively streamlined second half, Blood on the Moon, which climaxes with a rather endless closing stretch, has long-since cemented its place as an underwhelming Western that squanders its ample talent both in front of and behind the camera.

*1/2 out of ****