Here is a movie so fiercely fixed in its director's obsessive modes of confrontation and combat that it is not immediately perceived as a Western. O'Meara (Rod Steiger) is a frustrated warrior, and Run of the Arrow starts as a war film in which this Irish Confederate soldier fires the last bullet of the Civil War, hitting but not quite killing a Yankee. Peace means emptiness for O'Meara's intransigent soul: he is an archetypal American, burdened by another national identity and a brutal chip on his shoulder that prompts nearly constant action. (So) he heads west, into Indian territory, to see if he can become that ultimate outsider, a Native American. As in so many Fuller films, there is a fascinating meeting of different races, as well as a condensed tribute to the nobility of Indian ruthlessness and a diagram of how Native Americans were betrayed by the military, the pioneers, and the politicians of new nationhood. O'Meara's turmoil comes from the fury that being American is not just a matter of freedom and bravery, it is a fresh occasion for domination and exploitation.-David Thomson