There is no reason to expect a western starring Gary Busey and Willie Nelson to be good. Not in a non-jokey way at least. Busey is mainly known now for being kind of crazy. Nelson is mainly known at this point for really liking weed. Both would fit best into a Scary Movie or some other parody movie these days. Yet, in 1982, they made a pretty great Western.
In Barbarosa, Busey is dialed down to a very human level. He was in his upper 30s at the time, but he feels a lot younger. Watching it, I just assumed he was a freakishly old looking 25-year-old. Busey is one of those people you can’t imagine ever being young. And Willie Nelson gives a movie star performance. This is only his 4th movie but he’s excellent in it. That’s unexpected. These days, a lot of musicians are indistinguishable from actors. They are fame monsters who are looking for notoriety however they can get it and will follow whatever career gets them there*. That’s not Nelson. He’s a musician-first. There’s no reason to expect him to be any good on screen. Looking at his filmography of mostly TV Movies and cameos afterwards, maybe Barbarosa was lightning in a bottle. He makes this movie worth watching though. It helps that the film has a reasonable length and good direction.
*Check the receipts. I love a lot of these celebrities. That doesn’t make it untrue that they are performers-first who don’t care than much about the medium.
Verdict: Weakly Recommend
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