Buck and the Preacher

By boldly balancing historical responsibility with modern social critique, Poitier establishes his Western masterpiece as both a time capsule and timeless adventure, flowing effortlessly between the genre’s entertaining shootouts and robberies and the prescient commentary of subverting racist systems by all means necessary.

Poitier relieves the melodrama, thankfully, by livening up the picture with his sense of humor. [29 Apr 1972, p.187]

For all of Buck and the Preacher’s serious attempts to function as a revisionist western by centering Blacks in the narrative and examining the critical role they played on the frontier, it’s also a wildly entertaining film.

[Poitier] is indeed so good that he almost enables one to forget that "Buck and the Preacher" is simply a standard Western with a slightly different twist. [10 May 1972, p.17]

Buck and the Preacher, Sidney Poitier's first film as director as well as star, is a loose, amiable, post-Civil War Western with a firm though not especially severe Black Conscience.

It is pleasant enough, but somehow - despite excellent performances by Poitier (the intrepid wagonmaster) and Belafonte (a roguish preacher) - it never quite clicks.

Stereotypes abound in this foolish, witless western--a production misusing the fine talent in its cast.