Joshua

With the Civil War just ended a Union soldier by the name of "Joshua" (Fred Williamson) is looking forward to starting a new life and is on his way to meet his mother who had been staying with a young couple who are about to be married. Unfortunately, upon arriving there he learns that 5 men have killed his mother and abducted the young woman (played by Brenda Venus). Since the trail is still relatively fresh and the posse has abandoned the search Joshua decides to hunt down the murderers on his own. And none of these outlaws have ever faced anything so deadly. Now rather than reveal any more of this movie I will just say that it had a fairly interesting plot. However, the music played during several of the action scenes was rather annoying, the character development needed improvement and some of the scenarios lacked any sense of realism. To top it off, I didn't especially care for the ending either. In essence then, what should have been a pretty good Blaxploitation Western turned out to be slightly below average and I recommend it only to those who might be interested in a film of this sub-genre.

Joshua starring Fred Williamson in the title role tells the story of a returning black civil war veteran who finds his mother murdered and some other woman abducted by this gang of some really loathsome cretins. Of course Williamson's duty is clear.

The film was shot in the sacred John Ford country of Monument Valley, Arizona which as a tourist spot boasts of its fame as a location for some of the best westerns ever done. This however was not one of them.

The story of Patty Hearst was fresh in people's minds and the woman abducted decides she likes it with the gang. Let's say she becomes less and less inhibited in her sexual relations with the gang and she's more like an outlaw groupie by the time the film ends.

Unless you're a fan of Fred Williamson, pass this one by.

The previous poster commented that this movie was not available in Widescreen.

There's at least 2 ways to get this in Widescreen. I've got one on the 'Quality' label - it's a 2 movie set on one disc. The other movie is some William Shatner film. I was pretty shocked to see it in widescreen considering the package was only $5.00.

The 2nd way is on the 'Legends of the West' 8 Movie Collection. I'm pretty sure that's widescreen as well.

Slow movie that drags on.

The theme song repeats all the way throughout the movie. Don't remember if there was more than one actual song played throughout it's entirety.

This movie is really only for Blaxploitation/Fred Williamson completests.

This film I consider a very good example of how a film may elicit a variety of responses. I have learned not to take too seriously the comments by others or I may miss a real gem. Not that I would put this film in the gem category but definitely the good side of in-between. I am amazed to read how some abhorred the music. I recall how the music in Keoma drove some people crazy while others (like me) liked it. In Joshua the music fit the film perfectly, especially the low growl when the camera turned to the black rider. So (as we well understand) people's tastes vary. I went for the acting in this one also. I even liked the bad teeth on those ugly bad guys. Though I prefer an unpredictable story line, this film can be good when one prefers sometime something simple. Credibility got stretched for my taste but the music saved it for me. Not bad. I won't forget this one.

JOSHUA: THE BLACK RIDER (3 outta 5 stars) I am almost tempted to give this movie 5 out of 5 stars because it is almost perfect in its simplicity... a western movie can't get much more straight-forward than this: a man's mother is killed... and he spends the rest of the movie tracking and killing the men who did it. But, really, the acting is kind of poor and the direction is uninspired. There isn't really much dialogue so you can't say the script was well-done. Also, the movie is kind of slow... but personally I don't usually count that as a flaw... I *like* movies that take their time. Fred Williamson plays the title character... the bounty hunter bent on revenge for his mama's demise. The bad guys kidnap a woman along the way and rape her a few times but by the movie's end she has inexplicably allied herself with one of her assailants. Practically the entire soundtrack of this movie is a 90 second piece of faux-spaghetti-western music that gets repeated again and again and again... towards the end of the movie it almost becomes comical when that same old theme is repeated yet again. I think you need to *really* be a fan of westerns to like this one.. otherwise you are probably going to be bored beyond belief.