The Long Riders
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Movie Reviews of The Long Riders
Movie Review: Learning how to make a film
Summary: 2 Stars
This film is a step above inept, in writing and execution. The acting is decent...but the undeveloped weak script allows the actors no scenes that add up to drama, humor, or any insight to the characters. Scenes happen, end, and another starts with no sense of momentum or cohesiveness. No style in the direction, or sense of meaning in the scenes. Photography OK once in awhile, some boners in others. Music by Ry Cooder was enjoyable...made watching just palatable. Having real brothers, with a good script would have been great...oh well! Movie Review: Understated western suffers from stunt-casting
Summary: 3 Stars
Given the actual history of the James/Younger gang, this movie should have been more exciting than it was. Admittedly, the screenplay tries to stay close to the known facts and not wander off into mythmaking and glorification, and that is commendable. Nevertheless, the first job of a movie is to entertain, and if it doesn't do that, it might as well be a documentary on the History Channel. Moreover, the film clearly sides with these men, who were vicious killers, and tries to make them sympathetic, so it is dealing in myth after all, and thus has no excuse more not being more entertaining.
Part of the reason why this movie was so flat is that the natural lead role of Jesse James is given to James Keach, Stacy Keach's brother. I now know why I've never seen James Keach in another film; he has all the charisma and charm of a tree. Maybe it would have been better to bend the rule that on-screen brothers must be played by real life brothers. On the other hand, David Carradine, as Cole Younger, nearly steals the movie, and Stacy Keach and Randy Quaid both do good performances. The female characters are all competently acted, but the movie is not finally about the women. So this is a good, watchable movie, not a bad film. It just seems like it should have been better.
Movie Review: The Brothers Grim
Summary: 3 Stars
`The Long Riders' was full of potential to be a great movie. It was the first film about the James Gang to strip them of their Robin Hood myth, and that alone was enough to make it promising. Then, it used actual sets of acting brothers to portray the James, Younger, Miller, and Ford brother - a truly intriguing touch. Its action scene were brilliantly done, and it paid scrupulous attention to all the little details of dress, equipment, and furnishings to create an authentic 19th century atmosphere. Finally, it had a truly outstanding soundtrack created by Ry Cooder. `The Long Riders" had all of this going for it, and still it managed to fall flat.
There were several reasons why this movie did not fulfill its potential. One has to do with context. The movie strips away the myth that Jesse and the boys were Robin Hoods; good boys driven to crime by the devil Yankee railroad barons and demon Yankee bankers, and only stealing to even the balances, but then does not address at all what did motivate their violent careers. The criminal career of the James/Younger gang was nearly an unbroken extension of their war time raids as Rebel Bushwhackers, and it is impossible to have any kind of an understanding of them without this context. The movie covered a broad period of time, chronicling several of their crimes, the robbery that broke the gang - all the way to Jesse's death; by not including any scenes of their war time career, it felt like the opening chapter had been jettisoned for no good reason.
The primary cause of this film's failure, however, was in its tone. The historic outlaws were wild young men - full of bravado and a love for the wild life. In the `The Long Riders' version, the actors maintained a constant grim attitude; they brought the same faces to the gambling table, bar, and brothel that they brought to a funeral. We get no sense of their joy and excitement in their youth and lawlessness. David Carradine's Cole Younger showed some genuine wildness, but it was the wildness of a man angry at the world rather than the thrill of living on the edge. James Keach as Jesse James was the very worst. History tells us that Jesse was a clever, good humored, self promoter, and that he rose above his outlaw peers in fame on the strength of his personable nature and fast talk. Jesse James as played here by Keach is dour, humorless (he went the entire movie without a smile), silent, and rather dull. There is nothing in his performance that hints at why Jesse became a legend, or why others would follow him. This grim approach to portraying the outlaws robbed the movie of the verve that might have made it gel
`The Long Riders' has enough virtues that you may still want to view it, by I strongly recommend that you rent rather than buy. File this one under "what could have been", and move on.
Theo Logos
Movie Review: Two stars for novel casting
Summary: 2 Stars
First of all, I could have overlooked the historical inaccuracies of this film if it had still been interesting, but it wasn't interesting, thereby making all the historical inaccuracies that much more annoying. The script is terrible and the actors take characters (like the James' and Youngers) that should be exciting, and deliver their lines in a droning monotone that is simply sleep inducing. The story seems to meander all over the place as though the script writers (which included the Keach brothers) weren't completely certain how they were going to tell the story. The dialogue in several portions of the movie is painfully bad and plays like cheesy melo-drama. The movie seems to be going for a gritty and realistic tone, but it's rather flat and just plain dull. The only thing it has going for it is the novelty of the casting, and that is simply not enough to make it worth the purchase. Movie Review: "Cause you're a whore, Belle."
Summary: 3 Stars
Was this thing made for TV? Got to be a reason I managed to avoid seeing this the past 20 years. I would expect more from Walter Hill but this movie falls way short of it's overrated status as "one of the best." As far as the James/Younger sagas goes, this one doesnt quite chin the bar I'm afraid.
The Keach brothers with their 'dead eyes' bring absolutely no energy whatsoever to the part of Jesse and Frank James. The movie suffers from miscasting more than anything else. This focus on getting real life brothers to play the parts of the outlaws really backfired. If you've seen the movie you know what I'm talking about. It's a decent story but it just fails to deliver and you'll have a hard time mustering any sympathy for the outlaws. David Carradine is standout however, as Cole Younger. His knifefight with James Remar is the clear highlight of the film, followed only by the dialogue with his whore Belle Starr. That was pretty funny stuff.
Overall a little too reminiscent of the highly overrated Wild Bunch where the focus on graphic violence wins out over content. 3 bullets, in the back.