In the town of Sinola in New Mexico in the early 1900s, Joe Kidd (Clint Eastwood), a disaffected former bounty hunter, is in jail for hunting on Indian land and disturbing the peace. Mexican bandito/revolutionary Luis Chama (John Saxon) has organized a peasant revolt against the local landowners who are throwing the poor off their ancestral lands and raids the courthouse. A posse is formed by wealthy landowner Frank Harlan (Robert Duvall) to capture Chama. Kidd is invited to join but declines. Harlan persists and Kidd relents when he learns that Chama's band has raided his ranch and attacked one of the workers there. The posse is made up of numerous ruthless men, some of them armed with new-style rifles that have a much greater range than previous types.
