Little Big Man (DVD, 2000)

Comedy.... Action.... Drama.... War... and Romance is another great combination in a film top with serious issues. "Little Big Man" starts you off in 1970, with a reporter interviewing Mr. Crabb (Dustin Hoffman, in one of his great performances), the sole white survivor of the Battle of Little Big Horn, a wrinkled visage who is 121 years old at the time of the interview. In the course of his tall tale about the taming of the west, he recounts his career as a Cheyenne Indian, a bible thumper, a snake-oil salesman, a gunfighter, a drunk, and just about everything else one could be in those days. Since he was a white man raised by the Cheyenne, and spoke both languages fluently, he moved back and forth between the two worlds.

His story is great when it is being funny. I laughed at the sight of Dustin Hoffman dressed as a gunfighter. He really was the fastest gun in the West, and also the surest shot. Only one little thing kept him from achieving gunfighter immortality. He didn't like shooting at any living things.

Thankfully this was produced before the forces of political correctness could bowdlerize it. Today this would be watered down to avoid the epithets and stereotypes that add color and authenticity to this wonderful film. It is a obvious precursor to `Dances With Wolves', but also to a movie where the influence is less patent like `Forrest Gump' where famous persons are infused into a historical comic-drama. Numerous interesting characters infuse the picture: the epicene (though lustful) sister, the wise, yet pixilated Indian grandfather (played brilliantly by Chief Dan George), the unconscionable General Custer, the libertine Mrs. Pendrake (Faye Dunaway) and of course Dustin Hoffman's own character.

A funny and sad study of a wild time in history mixed with modern sentiments. A tall tale that resonates with truth.

One of the most beautifully filmed movies ever. Arthur Penn's Little Big Man is a lesson in man's inhumanity to man, mixing historical events and characters with fictional ones.I first saw this film in Junior High School, about 1978 and we actually watched it during history class over three days. It was a 16 mm print shown on the classic Bell and Howell school projector.

I was moved from the beginning to the end. It is indeed a western, and yet that's not all there is to this story. If people dismiss this movie as 'just another western', they are missing out on one of the finest films ever made.

I applaud the use of REAL Native American actors in little Big Man. There were so many Hollywood films and TV shows with Native Americans often portrayed by white actors of Jewish, Italian and German heritage.

The US. Government soldiers were murderers and are often portrayed as buffoons. Rightly so. The policies of the U.S. government were so twisted, sick and murderous, I hate to say it, but Custer and his gang deserved what they got at Little Big Horn. What stupidity. Custer is played as a clueless power hungry madman by the wonderful comic character actor, Richard Mulligan.

The use of the 'gay' Indian was genius. The Native Americans accept people of 'two spirits'. They are looked upon as valued members of the tribal family, not shunned and disowned for who they are.

The Native Americans were here first, and we stole their land and broke every treaty we ever made with them. The white man gave them alcohol which turned many into horrible alcoholics. That condition affects many natives on the reservations to this day. Depression, Poverty, Hopelessness. Having your land taken from you at gunpoint, and your people slaughtered. We'd be depressed, too if they had done it to us! I highly recommend this film as a historical western/comedy/tragedy.

Don't dismiss it. It's worth seeing. And owning.

"Sometimes the wind don't blow, & the grass don't grow".......the sum total of arrogant indian killer General George Armstrong Custer....this refreshing western starring Dustin Hoffman, Faye Dunaway, & Chief Dan George is a must-see for any wild west interest. The make-up job on Hoffman, transforming him into 113year old Jack Crabb, sets the stage for the "Forest Gump" of the Wild West era. Folks, this is family entertainment at it's finest...& there's plenty to remember from the storyline. 5-stars, Jo Bob sez, "Check it out!"

Dustin Hoffman made this one of the best flicks ever, for me. He plays someone who, caught between two warring cultures, gains insights that no one from either side could have about the "bigger picture." This was the film that first awakened me to the very awful human toll of the "Indian Wars" on Plains tribes. Unlike "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee," produced many years later, it's done as a satire rather than as a sweeping docudrama; also unlike that later production, there's real laughter in presentation of different absurdities in the hypocrisy of those who judged themselves superior to "the Red Man."

Anyone with family members or friends who survived the Holocaust will recognize similarities between the lot of the Cheyenne in 19th-Century America and that of non-Aryans in the Third Reich. In some ways, I would compare "Little Big Man" to "Life Is Beautiful," which also made a horrific subject tolerable through effective use of comedy and simple stories about relatively ordinary people.

While Dustin Hoffman made me laugh, Chief Dan George made me _think_ and has kept me thinking in the years since I first saw "Little Big Man." His character captures all of the noble people I've known who maintain their dignity under the worst possible circumstances... the individuals whose wisdom and decency ulitimately transcend the power of those who would (and too often do) erase them.

In short, this is a movie that will make any caring human being laugh but that will also produce tears. It changed my life.

Before this movie, Indians were one-dimensional characters - often humourless, bloodthirsty, mean and indiscriminate. Little Big Man was the first mainstream Hollywood movie that turned that around. The movie has a great heart. The characters are complex, funny, interesting people. Chief Dan George, God rest his mighty soul, was never better than in this movie. Hoffman did a lot of stuff before and after this, but never anything quite as good. And the supporting cast (including a stunning Faye Dunaway) is genius. If you're over 30, and have never seen this movie, FIX THAT NOW. If you're under thirty, educate yourself, youngin'.