Movie of the day: Little Big Man

Little Big Man

Starring Dustin Hoffman. The beginning of the movie, Dustin Hoffman playing as little big man and Jack, being a 121 yr old man, tells his life story that goes way back to the 1800's when the settlers were heading west to settle in to make a new life and the battle of Little Big Horn. The movie starts out when Little Big Man was a boy with his family. His family gets attacked by Pawnee Indians and both Jack and his sister, Caroline, gets taken by the Cheyenne Indians to be raised. Later, Caroline leaves because the Cheyenne thought that she was a boy not a girl. Jack then grows up, makes friends with the Cheyenne. Shadow adopts him, and Old Liveskin becomes his adopted grandfather, played by Chief Dan George. His grandfather tells him a story of Little Man, through a story of Little Man who was attacked by the Pawnee. Then, while he was at a Pawnee camp about to attack the Paunee, he saves Younger Bear's life. Here, he gets his name as Little Big Man for his bravery.

Then they get into battle of the union soldiers, and that is where he goes to the American Civilization. He gets raised by a preacher and his wife, Louise Pendrake, played by Faye Dunaway. The preacher is a person who likes to beat as a method to converse the kid to Christian, and his wife is a very loose woman of the west. He then discovers how the two really are and leaves them both and never went back to religion again.

He then pairs up with a medicine man, Meriwither who keeps loosing parts of himself through bad sales. Through him, he remeets his sister, Caroline, who tar and feather him and Meriwither, and becomes a gunfighter of the west and meets Wild Bill Hickok at a saloon, another the famous gunfighter of the west, the Sodapop kid. He becomes friends of Wild Bill and sees what it is like being a gunfighter at a death of a person shot by Wild Bill, this ends his gunfighting days.

Then Caroline leaves him and he gets married to a woman, Olga, and gets into being a storekeeper. Then when he looses everything due to his business partner being a thief, he then meets Gen. Custer and they move west and gets attacked by the Indians while riding a stagecoach. Olga gets taken by the Indians, and he goes looking for his wife.

He goes deep into Cheyenne Territory and goes back to his adopted native family tribe. His grandfather is pleased to see Little Big Man again and smokes for his return. He got to see his friend Little Horse and Younger Bear. Younger Bear becomes a backwards person who speaks opposite of what he means, do things opposite like use sand for washing, and water for rinsing. Here his grandfather learns about Gen. Custer through Little Big Man.

Then he goes back to the American civilization and meets Gen. Custer and goes into becoming a Union Soldier as a mule skinner. Then he goes into battle against the natives, he realizes what he got himself into and becomes a traiter to the union after he discovers who was being killed, he takes off from the souldiers, and gets a new wife, an indian girl, Sunshine, whose husband was killed. She has a baby while hiding in the bushes during the attack. He goes back home to grandfather and lives there for a while. He discovers his grandfather is blinded from a wound from the white man. He also discovers many tribes are being rubbed out by the white man and the tradition of scalping. He stays there for a year, then in the winter, he finds Olga who is the wife of Younger Bear. The union soldiers also makes an attack onto the camp. He looses his wife, Sunshine, and his new child and then goes back to the Union soldiers at a camp.

Here he meets Gen. Custer again and tells him who he is and that he is not a renegade indian. He tries for an assasination attempt to kill Custer, but fails. Custer discovers the weapon and dismisses him from the Union. He goes back to living in a white man civilization. He lives his life as a drunk among the whites. He meets Wild Bill again. He gets himself cleaned up and goes to the saloon where Wild Bill is at. He meets with him and tells him about a widow who is LuLu Caine. Wild Bill gets shot and killed, then he goes to meet LuLu Caine. He meets LuLu Caine who is the formerly Preacher's wife, Louise Pendrake. He sees what she really is and what her life has become. He tells her about Wild Bill and that she can take the train to go to Washington D.C. He then goes back to being a street bum, and remeets with Meriwither. He sees that he lost another part of his body, one of his legs. Meriwither wants to Jack to team up with him again, but Jack declines. Then when he reaches the bottom, he becomes a hermit deep in the wilderness.

Then he became suicidal and wanted to jump off a cliff when in a distance, the Union Army was marching by. He then changes his mind and went back to the union soldiers. He then gets back into being a scout and sets up the union army into trap against the Cheyenne Indians at Little Big Horn. The battle becomes outnumbered and the union souldiers and Custer gets slaughtered. Jack's life gets saved by Younger Bear. Jack goes back to the Cheyenne tribe to his grandfather, Old Liveskin and remains there.

It is a wonderful movie filled with American history of the west. I remembered watching this movie when I was a kid, and I always enjoy watching this every time when I rent this. You can rent this movie at your local library or video rental store.

Available on DVD, VHS 139 min, PG-13, rating thumbs up 4/4 star rating.

You can purchase this movie at paramount home entertainment.