The Long Riders
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Movie Reviews of The Long Riders
Movie Review: Long Riders
Summary: 3 Stars
About once a generation a western appears that boldly announces it's telling history "as it really was" and generally reenergizes the genre. THE LONG RIDERS did that in 1980, although it got its history as wrong as did the earlier ones. Belle Starr is offered here as a notorious prostitute and lover of David Carridine's Cole Younger. Starr was never a prostitute, although she was an outlaw who gained posthumous notoriety when her exploits were exploited by an eastern writer. She didn't marry Sam Starr until Cole Younger was serving his second year in prison for his role in the Northfield robbery, so the film's mano-a-mano showdown scene between Younger and Sam Starr is pure hooey. On the other hand, Cole Younger DID receive 11 gunshot wounds during the botched bank robbery - a number, I guess, no movie would ever feel the need to exaggerate.
None of this is meant to find fault with THE LONG RIDERS. If I want to learn history I'll read a book. Movies are meant to deliver the emotional impact of the story in a manner accessible to the widest number of people. Rather than telling it like it is, these corner turning filmmakers deconstruct myths and rebuild them in terms more acceptable to modern audiences. The Pinkerton agents are treated more gently than might be expected and the James Gang is portrayed as just about what they were before the publicists got to them - not a modern day bunch of Robin Hoods, but a group of tough men who found robbery amenable and profitable.
THE LONG RIDERS is probably best remembered for its inspired casting of real brothers to portray the historical brothers who were members of Jesse James' criminal gang. Bearing fond memories of watching it twenty-five years ago, I was really looking forward to seeing it again two and a-half decades later.
Imagine my disappointment. James Keach, who plays Jesse James, gives one of the most wooden performances I'd ever seen. A smile never crosses his lips, an identifiable emotion never appears on his face. History books tell us the real Jesse James was a devil-may-care, gregarious type, much like Butch Cassidy, while Frank James was the taciturn one.
Beyond the action scenes and especially the final showdown in Northfield I feel THE LONG RIDERS is awfully slow moving and uninvolving.
Movie Review: MANY OF THESE REVIEWS ARE OVER-RATING THIS MOVIE
Summary: 3 Stars
Based on the reviews here at this amazon site, I felt it sounded like a movie that I could buy and watch again and again. So I went out and paid the money. When I saw the movie, I returned it to the shop and asked if I could swap it for something else. I think the reviews here are over-rating this movie. Some how it paints the picture of brotherly love and how one brother backs another brother. Well that is trashed very early on, as Quaid junior is left on a limb by all including his older brother for messing up the first hit, not much look out for your brother there then. And what about the Guest brothers, they hardly did anything and their names make the cover of the dvd. The final hit that the gang undertakes was a good bit of action, but the one thing that I detest is when the gang fire one shot and kill someone, but when other people fire at the gang it takes about 10 bullets hitting different parts of the body and they still don't die - I hate this, I hate this a lot. It seemed the whole village of about 150 people were firing at our gang of about 7 and in the process took about 150 bullets without dieing - what was going on? After the final hit, half turn them selves in and Cole Younger is sitting there in hospital and he looked like nothing happened, when infact he took 11 bullets - what the hell is going on man. A similar thing happened in the Return of the Magnificent Seven, about half a dozen take on a whole army (it also happened in the first of the Magnificent Seven movies, but that was stylish and I liked it), it just looked absolutely ridiculous, not even a 5 year old would buy that.
The score was probably not that good either as I have forgotten it. One of the reviewers reffered to it as one of the top 5 westerns of all time - eh eh, how wrong can you be, it would not even make my top 10 best westerns.
If you want to watch a western or buy one and you do not have or seen any of Clint Eastwoods dollar movies then forget the Long Riders.
PS: When I returned the Long Riders I swapped it for Once Upon a Time in the West, which was nearly 3 times the price but much much much better.
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: "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.
Movie Review: Overall, Underwhelming
Summary: 3 Stars
This film was, when all is said and done, a great deal more style than substance. Because the James/Younger stories are reasonably well known, the director may have felt comfortable leaving a number of loose threads at each end of the cloth. He shouldn't have. Also, by distributing the focus around on 6 or 7 characters, he spreads himself far too thin. In a number of instances involving peripheral characters, I had the strong suspicion that a full director's cut might have created a sufficient context to explain something, but someone else got slap happy in the cutting room. As a result, the release version wound up seeming something like a mere series of tableaux with little character development from beginning to end. The main in depth portion involved the Northfield shootout at the end, which seemed to be a Wild Bunch redux and that was already a bit old by 1980. Other aspects such as the cinemetography and casting were quite good, but only served to allow The Long Riders to climb up to mediocrity overall.