1980: "The Long Riders"

                                    The Long Riders is an 1980 western following the exploits of the James-Younger Gang until their separation after the Northfield raid and the death of Jesse James. The movie is distinctive for having real-life brothers portraying the various brothers related to the gang (the Keachs portraying the James's, the Carradines playing the Youngers, the Quaids playing the Millers, and the Guests playing the Fords).  It also was directed by Walter Hill, best known for The Driver and The Warriors.

                                 It's.....okay, I guess. A competently shot Western, has fine acting, has a compelling, gruesome climax in Northfield (with slow-motion straight out of a Peckinpah movie), and....all for what? I don't know what the point of this movie was. The best way to describe this movie is episodic but there's no real strong narrative glue holding it together. There's about seven lead actors in this movie vying for the spotlight and the movie doesn't seem to know whose story is the real focus (doesn't help that the actor-brother gimmick is a tad distracting). I think the one actor that stood out to me was David Carradine as Cole Younger, with brother Jim being a close second. Mainly it's because both characters have emotional attachments that almost feel like full-blooded stories (Cole has a relationship with the town whore, Jim with a woman whose is briefly married to Ed Miller). Also, Cole has a memorable barroom knife fight with an Indian. None of the other characters get memorable barroom knife fights so why should I care?
                                I would also describe it as meditative, but I have no clue what it's a meditation of. Loyalty, family, death, lawlessness? Sure, it's violent and unsentimental like most realistic neo-Westerns so you could say it's just another attempt at de-romanticizing the West, but so what? The movie is as stoic and evasive as Jesse James himself (James Keach is the most sober-looking actor I've ever seen in a movie).

                                I'm not sure what else to say about it. There's intimations of a grander narrative but it's motivations are muddled and short-shrifted for a dry, overly stoic Western that offers nothing of substance to chew on.

                           

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