Wonderfully done film

***SPOILERS*** for Bronco Billy

like seemingly every eastwood movie......his character, bronco billy, is somewhat of an amoral hero. while bronco billy is portrayed as a kind-hearted person.......its comes as a surprise that bronco billy was in jail for 7 years for shooting at his wife when he found her in bed with his best friend. not to mention he met some other members of his show in jail as well.

It is true that Eastwood almost always plays characters who are somehow morally ambiguous or questionable, and Bronco Billy McCoy is no exception. In this particular case, I wouldn't call him amoral per se, but a moral man who takes his sense of morality to outrageous extremes. For example, seeing his wife in bed with another man (his best friend, as it turned out) so offended Billy's cherished sense of loyalty that he shot her and ended up serving seven years in prison. Indeed, Billy suffers from a dogmatic and tyrannical streak, especially when his sense of loyalty is violated. For instance, when his Wild West show cohorts complain about their lack of pay early in the film, Billy nearly goes berserk, stopping his truck in the middle of the road, ordering everyone out into the street despite a rain storm, and telling them to leave (before they explain that they don't want to leave). And Billy's belief in the principle of being true to oneself ("I'm who I want to be") takes him to the most marginal existence that one might imagine, leading a ragtag bunch of misfits across the indifferent modern West, struggling to eke out a living through an anachronistic tent show. And yet taking his sense of morality to an extreme can certainly be a positive. It allows Billy to affirm his sense of self, to live his dreams (however gingerly, given the financial perils of the enterprise), and to come to the aid of those in need. For instance, in a truly remarkable scene, Billy gives away his savings to a scathing small-town sheriff and allows the lawman to cruelly mock him, because that's what it takes to spring his young comrade (Lasso Leonard) from prison. After Leonard is thrown in jail for the revelation that he was a deserter in Vietnam, Billy refuses to abandon his friend. He'll give away his money and allow his persona to be humiliated before he ever turns his back on a friend.

Bronco Billy is a charming study of the American Dream, defined not through the accumulation of wealth, but the values of eccentricity, creativity, reinvention, and redemption. As Eastwood has said, the movie represented his version of a Frank Capra film.

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