Posse: Who needs a third act anyway?

Kirk Douglas was one hell of an actor/producer, but only ever directed two films and Posse - his second and last in 1975 - is an odd beast. For the most part, it's a fairly typical example of the revisionist westerns that were all the rage the time, with Douglas playing a lawman who can't see that his own hubris will be his downfall, as he tries to bring Bruce Dern (in total scumbag mode) to justice.

But what is genuinely surprising is that the film ends with Douglas losing his loyal posse to Dern, and even though he promises that he'll hunt them down to the ends of the earth, that's where the film ends. His ultimate vengeance just doesn't matter, his failure is complete and Dern gets to ride away to fuck up the West some more.

When most films of this type come with either total success or total failure at their end, Posse is more ambiguous, and all the better for it. It's a shame Douglas didn't direct more films, because his comfort with that kind of ambiguity is a path more directors should follow.