Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Sameer Callahan It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

Aiden Melton The storyline feels a little thin and moth-eaten in parts but this sequel is plenty of fun.

Bill Slocum Buster Keaton's comedies seem to hold their value with film lovers precisely because the man steps away from sentiment in his movies like it was another falling house front. So I suppose one has to credit his willingness to work away from his comfort zone when he took on the notion of playing the audience's heartstrings so directly as he does here.The sentimental stuff plays very well; it's actually the crux of "Go West's" enjoyment and lasting success. Here, it is the comedy, particularly the physical comedy that was Keaton's stock-in-trade, that seems rushed and suspect.Keaton's character, called "Friendless" in the opening credits, is a poor and lonely Indianian at odds with life. "Some people travel through life making friends where ever {sic} they go," the opening card tells us, "while others just travel through life."Friendless seems on such a journey when fate lands him on a ranch where the fair-if-unsentimental owner (Howard Truesdale) readies his herd of cows for market. Friendless drifts about aimlessly, not sure how to ride a mule or get a bull into a pen, but finds his way after helping a cow named Brown Eyes who has a rock caught in her hoof. She looks after him in turn. Soon the two are inseparable, but then the slaughterhouse beckons, and Friendless must find a way to save his new pal.If you are trying to go veggie or just kick a cheeseburger habit, "Go West" is a film for you. Brown Eyes proves a perfect film companion for the Great Stone Face, having an arrestingly blank visage herself and a similar ability to be at the right place at the right time. While Buster himself is endearingly gormless, introducing himself to the ranch owner with the line: "Do you need any cowboys today?", Brown Eyes looks after him in clever ways, like moving her body in front of a bull charging at an unaware Buster's upturned butt. They are a fun pair.The comedy in this film is what leaves me less won over. I want to like this film, but the gags are too strained and frenetic for classic Keaton work. One New York sidewalk scene early on shows Friendless being run over by a stampeding throng, for no apparent reason except to give audiences some expected laughs. On a train going west, Buster hides in a barrel for some reason, and rolls down a sandbank to no real purpose except to move on to the next scene.One early ranch episode where Buster tries to milk a cow by putting a pail under her and waiting for the milk to pour out was the movie's biggest laugh-getter according to a 1925 New York Times review by Mordaunt Hall. Today, it's hard to imagine such a reaction to a long shot of Friendless adopting a "Thinker" pose while waiting for that milk.The big rally at the end of the film has Friendless leading a herd of cattle through Los Angeles, while people in the crowd react as if under zombie attack. It is forced and overbaked stuff, even if the payoff at the end manages to be quite nifty. Much better are other bits that sprinkle the movie, especially the final exchange between Friendless and the rancher that makes for "Go West's" big takeaway moment, and proof director Keaton's huge investment in the Brown Eyes storyline was worth his atypically sentimental approach.In the end, you get a decent story, some fun moments, and a rare chance to see Buster playing against his stiff on-screen persona to good comic effect. You don't have to be Chaplin to make sentiment work in comedy. Still, when it's over, you are glad it's an experiment Keaton never tried again.

Chrissie Though it's not a masterwork like "The General", "Go West" perhaps has more heart than any other Keaton film. "Friendless" Buster, after being literally downtrodden in the big city, heads West, where he finds friendship in the most unlikely of leading ladies: an equally forsaken little cow named Brown Eyes. Keaton manages to make this implausible relationship believable, which it has to be, since the logic of the film hinges on it. Pulling off this cinematic magic displays a new and surprising side of Keaton's virtuosity as an actor and director.I'd not recommend "Go West" as a starter film for those not already familiar with Buster Keaton, but it's a delightful, poignant and funny piece of work.

ackstasis Though 'Go West (1925)' does not contain much of the technical wizardry and daredevil stunt-work that makes Busters Keaton's films so amazingly entertaining, it does contain a massive amount of heart, and that's just a different reason to watch it. Written and directed by Keaton himself (with writing assistance from Lex Neal and a scenario by Raymond Cannon), the film focuses on the cowboy exploits of a young, friendless man who finds the hustle-and-bustle of the city too much for him, and so ships out west in search of a new life. Though Keaton knowingly sets up the film to be a story of budding romance between himself and a beautiful girl (Kathleen Myers), it is here that tale takes a unique turn. While on the cattle ranch, Keaton falls in love with an adorable young cow named Brown Eyes, who affectionately follows him around wherever he goes. While human friendships have offered him little, in Brown Eyes Keaton finds a companion for life, and he tries everything in his attempts to stop the cow from being slaughtered.The final twenty minutes of the film contains one of Keaton's most ambitious set-pieces {and this certainly says a lot}, as he releases 1000 cattle to stampede through the streets of Los Angeles. Though some of the gags do go a bit over-the-top, there is an incredible energy in the sequence in which Keaton – dressed in a red devil suit to attract the cows' attention – sprints feverishly down the busy road, hundreds of bovine in tow, and an entire squad of panicked policemen clutching at his costume's dragging tail. The film's final joke is a classic one: the thankful ranch owner (Howard Truesdale) offers Keaton absolutely anything he wants in return for delivering the cattle and averting financial ruin. Keaton meekly declares "I want her," and casts his finger backwards in the direction of the man's pretty daughter. We are momentarily shocked at our hero's unexpected arrogance, but then Keaton plods off behind a wall and returns with Brown Eyes on a leash, and we understand that it had all been an amusing misunderstanding. Thus ends the most unusual love story of the silent era.

Franklin McAlister III I have to say I really like this movie because my recently deceased Grandfather had this movie on VHS tape and when I watched it I was able to get a huge amount of laughs out of it because of what Buster Keaton did when he dressed up in the DEVIL costume to get those cows to chase him to the Livestock yard. That was one good movie that should be available for everyone to watch. I just love how it shows that chase down the streets of that one city when those cows are all stampeding after the man in the costume because of how cows chase red things. I just wish that TV stations like AMC and Turner Classic Movies would show this film over and over again because this is a whole lot better than the films that are released today.