The train robbery scene was developed as a parody of a conventional train robbery to show that the gang was unable to carry out the simple task of an outlaw.
The Missouri Breaks (1976) was Arthur Penn's last major film. He had long been drawn to socially oriented themes. In this movie, he turns to a historical period in which land is no longer the source of income for the frontier family and instead becomes a currency for economic expansion. In that transition, land lost its iconic significance as a sign of independence. The film, therefore, marks the end of the frontier era.
Penn enhances Braxton's brutality by juxtaposing the execution of a young horse thief with a moment when he asks for Tristram Shandy.
As in many of Penn’s earlier works, The Missouri Breaks subverts the traditional opposition between lawman and outlaw. The agent of justice emerges as a psychopathic killer, a brutal force who calls himself a “man hunter” hired to protect the interests of wealthy landowners. At the same time, the so-called criminals are rendered vulnerable enough to invite the audience’s sympathy and identification.
Penn offers a satirical portrayal of both figures. Clayton (Marlon Brando), with his erratic behavior, shifting accents, and even his disguise as a woman, becomes a grotesque parody of the western lawman. By contrast, Tom Logan’s (Jack Nicholson) gang appears more like the fading shadow of the notorious gangs that began to form after the disappointing outcome of the Civil War, such as the James or Dalton Brothers.
While being a revisionist western, the movie preserves some of the iconography of the classic western genre, like a hat.
The train robbery scene is deliberately rendered as farce, suggesting they have outlived their time. Their later failure to steal the Canadian horses further confirms they were no Jesse James, as a brief moment in the train robbery ironically depicts.
Penn establishes Braxton’s (John McLiam) brutality early on through a chilling juxtaposition: immediately after hanging a young man for stealing horses, he is seen reading Tristram Shandy, indicating his literary education is a facade for his savage nature. In the penultimate scene, Braxton perceives Tom Logan not merely as a criminal but as a social intruder who has transgressed his
social class, a far graver offense than the theft of horses for which he executed a young man.
The movie is set toward the end of the frontier era, when land ceased to be a source of income for families and became an instrument in economic development.
Penn dismantles the myth of the westerner, who traditionally is a transient figure with no home. The vegetable garden where he tries to develop his roots in the land is an indication of his domestic tendencies. So is the scene where he prepares tea for Jane (Kathleen Loyd). Penn further disrupts classic Western conventions by reversing traditional gender dynamics, presenting Jane as the sexual aggressor. Penn subversively reveals that Clayton’s sinister professionalism is not immune to error. In the scene where he burns down the shack, the sight of Tom’s horse outside leads him to assume that Tom is inside. Cal's (Harry Dean Stanton) deceptive response was that Tom chose to burn rather than submit to the regulator. Clayton readily accepts the explanation because it flatters his own legend; his ego overrides his judgment.
Revisionist western began to appear in the early 60s, intended to deconstruct the conventions of classic western.
Although The Missouri Breaks functions as a revisionist Western, it preserves certain classic conventions of the genre, most notably the hat's iconography. In the classic Western, the hat, like the gun, is an extension of masculine identity, a marker of authority and control. Before Sandy’s hanging, Braxton is seen holding his hat, a gesture suggesting he has castrated Sandy.
This motif is further developed when Clayton traps Little Tod (Randy Quaid) on his return from Canada. As Tod falls from his horse, the front brim of his hat is torn, an indication of erosion of his authority. While Tod attempts to repair the hat, he has to borrow the sewing tools from Clayton, further establishing Tom’s compromised position.
Though the "regulator" was originally a form of frontier vigilante in the 1830s, by the 1880s—the era of the film—the role had transformed significantly. No longer a community-led movement, regulators had become professional killers hired by wealthy landowners and cattle barons to eliminate rustlers and intimidate homesteaders.
During the late 60s to late 70s, Hollywood filmmakers began reflecting on the Vietnam War. Penn depicts an unstable country that attempts to crush internal dissent by importing external force to restore order; thus legitimizing the use of force and violence in running a country.
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