Hondo (1994)

Rarely seen in recent years, its importance all but forgotten, Hondo supplies the prototype for all those laconic men of action John Wayne played through the years — and across the plains and oceans. As the hard-boiled cavalry dispatch rider protecting a feisty woman (Geraldine Page) and her young son (Lee Aaker) living on the frontier, the Duke dispenses pearls of prairie wisdom when he's not trading shots with marauding Apaches. James Edward Grant's script improves upon Louis L'Amour's original story, while director John Farrow wisely leaves Wayne alone and concentrates on pace, action, and dynamic composition, exploiting the then-new 3-D process (though MPI's release is the ''flat'' version, for dimensionally challenged viewers).