The review is deserved - possibly the BEST western I have ever seen - certainly one of the best movies ever for me; the closure in the final seconds is an act of creative courage that should shine on the director's head for ever - I walked out with my girlfriend of the time (no artistic slouch herself) shaking heads and muttering "they can't really finish it like that, can they?" I knew then that I would seldom see such a bold stroke; Lancaster shows what he is really made of when the glossy facade is dropped. Just been TV screened and I'm blown away once more - 35 years later!! The sheer moral vacuum of Tanner is a depiction of the worst that can happen when location and money allow someone to construct a "reliaty" founded on self-image - kill a man so that no-one will have cause to wonder if I killed my lover's husband to grab her - I don't need to kill someone to take his woman - and a life is a small price to pay to make that clear. The distancing of his henchmen is so vividly and quietly a thing of manhood's measure in Spanish terms that it quivers in the air on the the mesa above the plains and the leaching of colour is a pure masterpiece of mood that takes some seconds to notice happening