Michael_Elliott
The Long Riders (1980) *** 1/2 (out of 4)The story of Jesse (James Keach) and Frank (Stacy Keach) James and their exploits with the Younger brothers (David, Keith and Robert Carradine) and the Miller's (Dennis and Randy Quaid).Walter Hill always wanted to do a Western and many can spot various Western elements in his earlier films like THE WARRIORS and THE DRIVER. This here allowed him to do an all out Western and there's no question that it was a major success on many levels. Obviously the gimmick here is that real-life brothers were cast in the picture and there's no question that this adds to the entertainment level but there's also a great number of sequences that really make this a memorable film.I think the greatest thing the film has going for it is Hill's eye and this is especially true during the robbery scenes. These scenes are full of exciting and tension because they all so well staged and this is especially true for the finale, which one has to considering one of the greatest sequences ever shot. This final robbery is full of graphic violence, slow motion and some really fantastic editing. The entire sequence will have you holding your breathe as everything plays out.The film also benefits from a terrific cast. There's not a weak performance to be found in the cast no matter if it's coming from the leads or the smallest of supporting players. James and Stacy Keach really stand out in their performances and the Carradine brothers have always been terrific. David Carradine really stands out in his strong performance and you've also got Christopher and Nicholas Guest as the Ford brothers. The person who steals the film was Pamela Reed as a hooker. The toughness that Reed brings to the role means she walks away with the picture each time she's on screen.As I said, the film has some pretty shocking and graphic violence, which is something that Hill would become known for going forward. This really does work extremely well as a family film. Family film meaning seeing how these brothers and families deal with being wanted by the law and making a profession out of doing illegal things. The character development is quite interesting and especially how Hill shows the way that they work together during the various conflicts. It seems THE LONG RIDERS got forgotten due to it being released the same year as HEAVEN'S GATE but it's certainly a very good movie.
poe426
THE LONG RIDERS isn't as gritty as THE GREAT NORTHFIELD, MINNESOTA RAID nor as theatrical as, say, TOMBSTONE (another movie about a real life shootout), but it IS super-stylized, with an impressive cast. If I have one complaint, it's that the historical background of "the James gang" is only briefly touched upon: it would've been interesting to see how the Civil War atrocities that were committed BY and AGAINST some of these men resulted in the formation of the gang- from the loss of personal property to the acts of outright murder they then committed themselves. I've never bought into the idea that these men were Robin Hoods (I've never read any documentation to that effect); they were robbin' hoods, and they were murderers. THE LONG RIDERS is a romanticized version of what was for many a true life horror story. It would be interesting to see this story from THAT perspective. (And I've always thought it telling that the gang was decimated by armed citizens and not by Law Enforcement.)
virek213
The American West has provided an endless amount of true-life stories that have become legends of our nation's history. Inevitably, of course, this means that men that are branded as "outlaws" have become a part of all that. One such gang of outlaws was the one led by Frank and Jesse James that terrorized a large chunk of the Midwest in the years following the Civil War, and right up to the first years of the 20th century. That legend, unsurprisingly, has seen its share of films being made by Hollywood. But perhaps the most provocative of the bunch is the one made by action film stalwart Walter Hill at the turn of the 1980s. That film was THE LONG RIDERS.This take on the venerable outlaw legend is notable for having sets of brothers play the outlaws: Stacy and James Keach play the James Brothers'; the Carradines (Keith, Robert, David) are the Youngers; the Quaids (Dennis and Randy) play the Miller Brothers; and Christopher and Nicholas Guest portray the Fords. During the 1870s and 1880s, these men rack up a series of felonies so long and so brutal that they become oversized legends of their time, and quickly become the focus of the equally legendary Pinkerton detective agency (the frontier forerunner to the FBI). But the methods the Pinkertons use to hunt down the James/Younger boys are not only unconventional, but even criminal at times themselves, earning the scorn of a lot of people, especially those close to the boys in the states of Missouri and Tennessee. The end result is a blood-soaked affair that climaxes when the gang attempts to rob a bank in Northfield, Minnesota, in a raid that only nets them a lot of bloodshed since it was all set up by the Pinkertons and that the entire town was waiting for them. All three of the Youngers are so badly wounded that the Jameses abandon them. Those that are not wounded are eventually captured by the Pinkertons. Only the Fords were ever offered a deal: to turn state's evidence and track down the James Brothers, which they indeed took.Made on what was a fairly sizeable budget for a Western ($10 million), THE LONG RIDERS did, however, score quite well at the box office; and as a result, the film was perhaps the last great Western to be a hit before the monstrous critical and box office debacle of HEAVEN'S GATE came along at year's end in 1980, all but decimating the Western as a genre. Hill and his crew were sticklers for authenticity, and it shows in every frame of the film, with each set of acting brothers doing convincing turns as the outlaws, and with Pamela Reed giving a fine turn as soon-to-be-outlaw cowgirl Belle Starr, a loose associate of the James/Younger gang. Given the period in which it was made, no one should be surprised that the outlaws are seen as the heroes, and the Pinkertons as more or less the heavies (since their methods of hunting down the gang are terribly unethical at times). And since Hill wrote the screenplay for director Sam Peckinpah's 1972 crime thriller classic THE GETAWAY, and loosely studied under that director, no one should be shocked either that THE LONG RIDERS is a fairly violent film, with bloody shootouts rendered in slow-motion (though Hill's editing style is not as cascading, nor quite as memorable, as Peckinpah's was for, say, THE WILD BUNCH).Filmed primarily on locations in northern California, Texas, and Georgia, THE LONG RIDERS benefits greatly not only from its casting and its period authenticity, but also from the rustic, down-home country/folk music score by Americana legend Ry Cooder, who would work again with Hill on films like STREETS OF FIRE, SOUTHERN COMFORT, TRESPASS, JOHNNY HANDSOME, LAST MAN STANDING, and GERONIMO: AN American LEGEND. It is sad that the Western genre had basically entered its twilight by the time THE LONG RIDERS was released, and that HEAVEN'S GATE (released, ironically, by the same studio, United Artists) would all but bury it in the ground for a long time, because this film has a lot to recommend to it. It belongs squarely in the traditions that both Peckinpah and Sergio Leone set forth in the 1960s, that in which the demarcation between black and white was really quite gray, and where right and wrong were determined by the participants, and not a half-baked sense of morality. Hill, who can sometimes be an uneven director, nevertheless understood that better than most, which is a big reason THE LONG RIDERS is one of the best of the latter breed of that most distinctly American of film genres.
