Stuart Rosenberg directs a friendly, shaggy-dog type of story. It's a modern day western comedy based on the novel Jim Kane by J.P.S. Brown and co-scripted by John Gay and Terrence Malick. This is one of many collaborations between Rosenberg and Newman ("Cool Hand Luke," "WUSA" & "The Drowning Pool"). It plays out as character studies in contrast between two cowboys with big dreams, the naive Jim Kane and the hard-living but slow-witted Leonard (Newman & Marvin). These two yokels are taken advantage of in Mexico when they team up in a cattle smuggling scheme to cross the border to Texas.