Gordon Douglas might not have been an auteur but as a purveyor of good, solid entertainments, and westerns in particular, he was up there with the best and his 1970 western "Barquero" remains a guilty pleasure of the first order. Sticking almost entirely to the one setting, (a river and the banks on either side), with its protagonists very clearly divided between the good guys, (Lee Van Cleef, Forrest Tucker), on one bank and the bad guys, (Warren Oates, Kerwin Mathews), on the other and a plot that basically involves a stand-off and a climatic gun-battle, (there's a pretty good gun-battle at the beginning, too), it's totally engaging for its almost two hour running time with a very decent script by George Schenck and William Marks and first-rate cinematography from Jerry Finnerman. Of course, Warren Oates lifts every film he's in and he's a terrific villain in the Eli Wallach mould here. Hell, even Kerwin Mathews is good in this one. Not as well known as "Rio Conchos" but almost as good.
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