Film Review: Ulzana's Raid (1972)

The Westerns of the New Hollywood era (roughly 1967–1980) were marked by their revisionist sensibilities, eschewing the romanticised tropes of classic Westerns in favour of bleak, morally ambiguous narratives that mirrored the disillusionment of Vietnam-era America. Even filmmakers from an earlier generation, such as Robert Aldrich, whose career spanned decades, contributed to this shift. Aldrich’s 1972 film Ulzana’s Raid, though not as instantly iconic as The Wild Bunch or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, stands as one of the more underrated exemplars of the revisionist Western. Its unflinching portrayal of warfare, cultural conflict, and institutional incompetence reflects the era’s broader scepticism toward authority and traditional heroic narratives, yet its critical and commercial neglect has left it as a shadowy masterpiece.

The screenplay, penned by Scottish writer Alan Sharp, draws loosely on historical events from the 1880s in the U.S. Southwest. The plot follows a small band of Apaches led by Ulzana (Joaquin Martínez), who escape the San Carlos Indian Reservation to unleash a campaign of violence against white settlers. Their actions prompt the U.S. Army to deploy Lieutenant Garnett DeBuin (Bruce Davison), a young and inexperienced officer, to track them down. Assisting DeBuin are two seasoned scouts: McIntosh (Burt Lancaster), a white man who has assimilated into Native American culture, and Ke-ni-tey (Jorge Luke), Ulzana’s brother-in-law. The film’s central tension arises from Ulzana’s tactical brilliance, which allows him to outmanoeuvre the numerically superior military forces through his intimate knowledge of the terrain and guerilla warfare tactics.

For Aldrich, Ulzana’s Raid was not his first foray into revisionist Westerns. In 1954, he directed Apache, a film now criticised for its “whitewashing” of a Native American protagonist: Burt Lancaster played Massai, a fictional Apache leader, in a role that modern audiences might find culturally insensitive. By 1972, however, Aldrich had moved beyond such representations. Reuniting with Lancaster, he cast him as McIntosh, a white scout, while the title role of Ulzana went to Martínez, a Mexican actor who later portrayed another Native American character in Jeremiah Johnson. Ulzana’s story also inspired two East German “Red Westerns” (Apachen and its sequel Ulzana), which romanticised Native American resistance—a stark contrast to the more ambivalent perspective of Ulzana’s Raid.

Historically, Ulzana’s actual raids were even more brutal and protracted than depicted in the film. Sharp’s script, however, prioritised allegorical resonance over strict fidelity to history. The Vietnam War’s lingering trauma loomed large in the film’s subtext, with Aldrich—echoing his approach in the WWII film Too Late the Hero—using the 19th-century setting to critique contemporary military ineptitude. The U.S. Army’s struggle to comprehend and counter Ulzana’s asymmetric tactics mirrors America’s struggles in Southeast Asia, where conventional forces found themselves outmatched by guerrilla fighters. The film’s critique is subtle but unmistakable: institutions built on colonial arrogance and racial superiority are doomed to fail against adversaries who understand the land and its people.

Sharp’s script avoids the didacticism of contemporaries like Soldier Blue (1970), which framed the Indian Wars as a straightforward clash between good and evil. Instead, Ulzana’s Raid presents a morally complex tableau. The Apaches are not “noble savages” but pragmatic warriors capable of extreme violence, including rape, torture, and mutilation. These scenes—graphically depicted in a post-Hays Code era—were particularly controversial, especially in Britain, where censors objected to the brutality and animal killings. Yet the film’s unflinching gaze extends to both sides: white soldiers commit atrocities too, and the Apaches’ actions are framed as retaliation against oppression. Even the soldiers’ suffering is portrayed without sentimentality, with many deaths arising from poor leadership and sheer bad luck rather than any grand ideological conflict.

The film’s exploration of perspective is its greatest strength. Though Ulzana himself remains an enigmatic figure—uttering few lines beyond a ritual song—the Apaches’ motivations are articulated through Ke-ni-tey and McIntosh. In a pivotal scene, Ke-ni-tey explains to the naive DeBuin why his people torture enemies. McIntosh, meanwhile, serves as a voice of weary pragmatism, embodying the disillusionment of those who have seen too many wars. Lancaster’s performance as McIntosh is masterful, blending gruff authority with quiet humanity, while Luke’s Ke-ni-tey offers a nuanced counterpoint to the white soldiers’ naivety.

The film’s bleak tone is cemented in its conclusion. Though DeBuin’s mission technically succeeds—Ulzana is killed—the victory is pyrrhic. Most of the soldiers and McIntosh perish in a series of misfortunes exacerbated by his inexperience. This anti-climax, devoid of triumph or catharsis, aligns with the New Hollywood ethos of rejecting easy resolutions. Critics praised the film’s integrity, yet its grimness and lack of traditional heroism limited its commercial appeal. Audiences accustomed to the glamour of Butch Cassidy or the epic scale of Little Big Man found little to latch onto in Ulzana’s Raid’s gruelling, procedural narrative.

Aldrich’s direction is consistently assured, particularly in the film’s extended action sequences, which eschew Hollywood polish for a raw, documentary-like quality. The Arizona desert becomes a character in its own right, its harsh beauty and unforgiving terrain mirroring the characters’ moral desolation. The cast delivers uniformly strong performances, with Lancaster relishing the chance to play an older, world-weary role. Davison, as DeBuin, conveys the officer’s earnestness and gradual realisation of his own limitations. However, it is Martínez who leaves the deepest impression as Ulzana: his piercing gaze and silent intensity make him a formidable, almost mythical figure, embodying the film’s theme of resistance against overwhelming odds.

The film’s greatest weakness lies in Frank DeVol’s score, which leans too heavily on generic, mid-1970s TV-movie tropes. The strings and woodwinds feel overly familiar, lacking the thematic depth or emotional resonance of, say, The Wild Bunch’s score by Jerry Fielding. This undermines the film’s otherwise immersive atmosphere, occasionally breaking the tension with clichéd musical cues.

In the end, Ulzana’s Raid is a film of remarkable ambition and coherence, yet its flaws and its timing conspired against its legacy. It lacks the epic scale of other New Hollywood Westerns, opting instead for intimacy and moral complexity. Its unflinching portrayal of warfare’s futility, coupled with its nuanced perspective on violence, positions it as a vital but overlooked entry in the revisionist canon. For viewers willing to engage with its bleakness and intellectual rigour, it offers a stark reminder of Hollywood’s capacity to challenge its own myths—and of the costs of clinging to them.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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