Name: Film Review: The Long Riders (1980)
Item: The Long Riders
Author: @drax

(source: tmdb.org)

Nothing demonstrates the power of modern media like Hollywood’s ability to transform bloodthirsty killers and ruthless criminals into romantic and sometimes even heroic figures. The James-Younger Gang, a group of former Confederate guerillas that used to rob banks in the Midwest in the years after the American Civil War, is the group that benefited from that phenomenon, and its leader Jesse James became the protagonist of many westerns. Only the arrival of the revisionist western trend in the 1970s allowed a more balanced and historically accurate approach, first seen in Philip Kaufman’s 1972 film The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid. The same approach was used by Walter Hill in his 1980 film The Long Riders.

The plot begins in 1872 and follows seven men – brothers Jesse and Frank James (played by James and Stacy Keach), brothers Cole, Jim and Bob Younger (played by David, Keith and Robert Carradine), and brothers Ed and Clell Miller (played by Dennis and Randy Quaid) – who form the core of the gang that became notorious for a seemingly unstoppable series of bank, train and stagecoach robberies. The gang became very skilful at evading authorities and also enjoyed strong support from their members’ large families and from many inhabitants of Missouri who had sided with the Confederacy during the war. Ed is thrown out of the gang after needlessly killing an innocent man during one of the robberies. Afterwards, two of the Jameses try to settle down and marry, while other gang members, like Cole, prefer a more libertine lifestyle that includes relationships with prostitutes like Belle Starr (played by Pamela Reed). Pinkerton detectives, led by Rixley (played by James Whitmore Jr.), even when employing some questionable and violent methods, are unsuccessful in their attempts to capture the gang. Its undoing comes after Jesse James’s fateful decision to rob the bank in Northfield, a town in the distant and relatively unfamiliar state of Minnesota, which results in most of the gang being killed or captured. Jesse and Frank James survive, but then Jesse makes another fateful decision by bringing brothers Bob and Charley Ford (played by Nicholas and Christopher Guest) into the gang.

The Long Riders is based on a script which originated as an idea by James and Stacy Keach, two brothers who played brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright in a 1971 television biopic. The two brothers later co-wrote the script with Bill Bryden and Steven Phillip Smith and produced the film, expanding the concept of various brothers on screen being played by real-life siblings. An interesting gimmick helped with publicity, but the biggest asset of The Long Riders was director Walter Hill, author of successful and highly regarded action films. His skill is best demonstrated in a couple of scenes inspired by Sam Peckinpah’s films, including the fateful robbery in Northfield, which is portrayed with a surprising level of historical accuracy. Hill also manages to keep the pace tight and compress nearly a decade of events into a relatively short 100 minutes, but the plot still reveals its episodic nature. Some of the characters and subplots are underdeveloped, and at least one scene, like Cole Younger’s prolonged knife fight with Belle Starr’s husband (played by James Remar), seems unnecessary. The acting is, on the other hand, very good, although James Keach as the gang’s leader looks visibly inferior to his better-known brother Stacy. The Long Riders is in the end helped by a very interesting musical score by Ry Cooder, with song lyrics that provide an ironic commentary on the historic events.

RATING: 6/10 (++)