Nevada Smith is a rugged innocent boy born in the 1890s during California's gold rush days to a Native American mother and white father. When he finds his parents have been murdered by vicious killers, he sets out to track them down. While the film is a western, and has plenty of action, it is also a powerful and revealing study of the regeneration of a man, in this case a lone-gunslinger who is so blinded by his compulsion that is obscures any other motive for living.