A wealthy landowner (Robert Duvall) attempts to hire former bounty hunter Joe Kidd (Clint Eastwood) and a band of killers to track down a group of armed revolutionary Mexicans (led by John Saxon's Luis Chama) whose U.S. land claims were denied and then burned by the government. At first, Kidd turns down the offer, until Chama steals his horse and terrorizes his friends. John Sturges directs from an original screenplay by Elmore Leonard.