Synopsis
Handsome Stranger has agreed to escort Charming Jones to collect her inheritance from her father. But Avery Simpson wants the money and hires notorious outlaw Cactus Jack to ambush Charming. However, Cactus Jack is not very good at robbing people.
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Cast
- Kirk DouglasCactus Jack
- Ann-MargretCharming Jones
- Paul LyndeNervous Elk
- Foster BrooksBank Clerk
- Ruth BuzziDamsel in Distress
- Jack ElamAvery Simpson
- Strother MartinParody Jones
- Robert TessierMashing Finger
- Mel TillisTelegraph Agent
- Laura Lizer SommersWorking Girl
Recommendations
- 40
Variety
Rarely has so much talent been used to so little purpose. - 30
The New York Times
Mr. Douglas does a lot of stunts, some of them reasonably good; these seem to be the would-be comic backbone of a movie that's not after laughs but heehaws, which in any case it doesn't get. - 30
Newsweek
Though kids may enjoy The Villain's harmless high jinks, most adults will feel that, at 90 minutes, this cartoon is about 80 minutes too long. [06 Aug 1979, p.56] - 25
TV Guide Magazine
Another broad-brush, unfunny feature from one-time stunt director Needham. - 25
Washington Post
The Villain is the sort of dumb comedy that never smartens up. [23 July 1979, p.B11] - 25
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The Villain is itself an extended cartoon, a cartoon with live actors as its director Hal Needham redundantly describes it. The result: while we still guffaw once or twice, our suffering increases proportionately as we are made to sit through a full 80 minutes of numbing mindlessness. [25 July 1979] - 20
Time Out
Douglas mugs his way through a tedious routine of graceless, mistimed slapstick as his incompetent outlaw repeatedly fails to waylay the miscast Schwarzenegger and Ann-Margret, while director Needham - apparently lost without Burt Reynolds - resorts to hackneyed camera trickery, and only stops the rot with a truly offensive resolution.
