Clint Eastwood tried to get mellow--and/or funny--with a series of films in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Bronco Billy works better than most (certainly better than those monkey movies he made), though it's far from perfect. Still, there's something charming about Eastwood as a cowboy wannabe who runs his own version of a Wild West show in modern times. The show is ragged and his sharp-shooting skills are suspect, but he's having fun. At least until a runaway heiress (Sondra Locke) joins his second-rate band of buddies and proves to be both a divisive and jeopardizing force and who ultimately forces Eastwood to admit to his New Jersey roots. Eastwood is nice in a relaxed mood, but one wonders (as he must at this point) what he saw in Locke. --Marshall Fine