John Wayne & Howard Hawks are perhaps one of the finest actor/director duos of all time in my opinion. And in Rio Bravo you'll see why. John Wayne is a small town sheriff (love how those badges always stay shiny) who arrests the son of a powerful rustler for murder. Of course the evil rustler comes to town to get his kiddy from jail, and Wayne enlists the help of a cripple (comic relief sidekick), young gunslinger (Martin) and a mysterious woman (Dickinson) to fend off the baddies.
This simple plot line is what made Hawks and John Wayne famous. Even though we know what's going to happen we want to see John Wayne kick butt and talk in that famous voice. Fantastic! You'll also see why Hawks's technique of filming man's insignificance against the wild Western landscape has been copied by so many, most notably locally by Peter Weir in Picnic at Hanging Rock. If you're after a movie that epitomises what America thinks the West was all about, this is it.