The Searcher is based on an Alan Le May novel, and American Film Institute ranked this movie as the best western in their top 10 genre ratings in 2008. I think they must quite honestly been completely out of their mind.
John Wayne does well portraying a complex character developing during the movie, but there's a lot of weak acting in this movie. Were others have showed how to portray emotions without having to exaggerate, The Searchers have several actors going way off doing exactly exaggerating. It's even embarrassing to watch some of the scenes.
I'll assume the novel told a good story. I haven't read it, but it seems like a story easy to tell well in a novel. I've read Lonesome Dove in novel form as well as watched the mini-series, and this have much of the same qualities for a novel. In the movie there's in addition to the weak acting also problems balancing in the side stories, both those trying to be funny and those trying to portray everyday life or even some of the plot turning points. The main plot is interesting and good, but it's not told fluently enough and some of the scenes are quite honestly not told with credibility even if the rest of the movie is tried done so.
They'll get credit for some of the camerawork. They do manage to both show the west as huge and empty, you can feel the dust and there's some really well considered shots both giving life to emotional scenes and the landscape.
John Wayne, the main plot and a lot of the camerawork and their choices for filming lifts the movie, but there's so much else dragging it down I can't sing its praises like some seems to do. It's not even close to be the best western made. Not even close.
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