This Burt Reynolds vehicle is an action thriller variant on his buddy Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider, which was itself a re-working of the classic Western Shane. The name of Burt's character is no coincidence, as he's Mr Alone for most of the story, which pits him against a power-mad industrialist (Cliff Robertson, too nice a personality to be successfully cast as such a heavyweight villain) and his gang of goons. They're driving people out of the town in which Burt, fleeing a career as a CIA assassin, happens to stop. The first third of the film is nicely done, especially in its build-up of the relationship between world-weary Reynolds and the father and daughter with whom he stays. Later, though, it degenerates into a standard display of dispatched hit-men and graphic violence. British Columbia stands in nicely for the wilds of Oregon.

©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes