BY JOHN M. WHALEN
Walter Hill’s “The Long Riders,†(1980) is an account of
the last days of the legendary James-Younger outlaw gang. The film starts with
a botched bank job, in which one of the gang, Ed Miller (Dennis Quaid), gets
nervous and shoots an unarmed customer. There’s more shooting and they manage
to get away but everyone agrees Ed’s got to go. It’s the first indication of
trouble—the first sign that the gang’s best days may be behind them. The rest
of the film follows the trajectory of their decline, as they attract the
attention of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and make a disastrous attempt to
rob a bank in Northfield, Minn.
“The Long Riders†is
praiseworthy for trying to be something other than just another shoot-em-up
western. But it’s a movie with a gimmick—a gimmick that results in a film that is
something less than it could have been. The gang in real life consisted of the
two James brothers (Frank and Jesse), the three Younger brothers (Cole, Jim,
and Bob), and the Miller Brothers (Clell and Ed). Director Hill thought it
would be a cool idea to cast real-life brothers in the parts. Stacy and James
Keach play the James boys. David, Keith, and Robert Carradine star as the
Youngers. Randy and Dennis Quaid play the Millers. It was an inspired concept but it had one major drawback. James Keach was
totally miscast as Jesse. His portrayal of the leader of the gang is weak, and
totally lacking in charisma. The Jesse portrayed here couldn’t lead a Boy Scout
troop to a knot-tying Jamboree.
David Carradine, on the other hand, as Cole Younger,
steals the movie. Carradine is not only charismatic in this film, he looks dangerous.
In interviews he often claimed that most of his performances during that era
were fueled by Grey Goose. You can believe it, especially in a knife-fight
scene with James Remar as Sam Starr. Throughout the film his younger siblings
provide him with comfortably familiar support that can only come from real
brothers. However, Stacy Keach as Frank James seems caught between trying to
keep the dull Jesse and the wild Cole Younger from going after each other.
“The Long Riders†focuses on the differences between the
Jameses and the Youngers. Jesse and Frank are family-oriented. The Youngers
just want to be free. When Jesse plans to get married, Cole tells his brother
Jim: “It don’t go with the way he’s livin’.†The differences build until, at
the beginning of the Northfield Minnesota Bank robbery scene, when Jesse says
they’re just going to go into the bank and take the money, Cole wants to do a little planning and
scouting first. Jesse is scornful of the idea. Cole says with some disgust: “I’ve
long since given up trying to talk sense to you.â€
“The Long Riders†is essentially plotless. As he did
later in “Wild Bill†(1995), Hill tells the story in separate disconnected
scenes, many of which end simply by fading to black. As a result, the movie
lacks tension and the characters fail to really come alive, even though the
film spends a lot of time showing the gang’s social activities when not on the
job. We see them attending funerals, weddings, hoedowns, and shows, most of
which simply stop the action and rob the story of its momentum. The good thing
about those scenes, however, is that we get a chance to hear Ry Cooder’s great
folk music on the soundtrack, which plays almost constantly throughout the
movie. There are plenty of fiddles, Jews harps, and dulcimers on hand and even
a guy playing spoons. And it’s always a pleasure hearing Cooder doing his best
to sound like Blind Willy Johnson on acoustic slide guitar. But after all the
digressions, when the big final set piece in Northfield takes place (filmed in
imitation Sam Peckinpah slo-mo style), you’re almost caught by surprise and as
a result the violence and bloodshed have little emotional impact. The final
gimmick comes in the Jesse James assassination scene in which two more real
life brothers (Nicholas and Christopher Guest) play Bob and Charlie Ford.
Kino Lorber’s Studio Classic Blu-ray release is quite a
package. There are two discs. Disc one is a brand new 1920x1080p 4k digital
restoration of the film presented in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Special bonus
features on Disc One include audio commentary by film historian Howard S.
Berger, and two others, as well as trailers for other KL Studio Classic
releases. Disc Two contains enough features to keep you on your sofa for hours,
including: a one-hour featurette on the making of the film and new interviews
with Walter Hill, Keith and Robert Carradine, Stacy and James Keach, Randy
Quaid and Nicholas Guest. There is also an interview with Ry Cooder talking
about the music he used in the movie and a short featurette comparing Walter
Hill’s use of slo-motion compared to the way Sam Peckinpah did it.
If you’re a western fan, and particularly if you dig the
idiosyncratic work of Walter Hill you’re going to enjoy “The Long Riders†even
with its flaws.
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John M. Whalen is the author of "Hunting Monsters is My Business: The Mordecai Slate Stories" . Click here to order the book from Amazon)