Review of The Long Riders (1980) by Allan C — 03 Aug 2017

Interesting if flawed Walter Hill retelling of the James/Younger Gang saga focuses more on their families than their outlaw exploits. This film notably has the gimmick, and it's a pretty good one, of casting real-life siblings to play the James brother (Stacey and James Keach), the Youngers (David, Keith, and Robert Carradine), the Millers (Dennis and Randy Quaid), and the Fords (Christoper and Nicholas Guest).

Even without that gimmick, this would still be a unique retelling of the oft told tale. The film starts out with the gang already outlaws and nearing the end of their run. Iconic events such as the Northfield Raid and the straightening of the picture frame are all present, but the film is really about familial loyalty with action sequences interspersed.

The main problem with the film is the meandering and rather unfocused scrip, which is interesting because director Hill's films that he writes (The Keach brothers wrote this one), are typically lean, mean, and incredibly efficient in their storytelling, but Hill is not one of the credited writers on this film at it suffers for it.

But on the plus side, besides the non-typical angle for telling this story, Hill does bring his usual gusto to the action sequences and that does inject a significant amount of life into what otherwise seems too talky of a western.

I'm not sure if they were going for something like John Ford's "My Darling Clementine," which was an unusually quiet and arguably meandering retelling of the Wyatt Earp Tombstone episode, but that film is an undeniable American Film Classic and "The Long Riders" is not.

Still, this film is certainly worth watching. There's a terrific supporting cast that includes western veteran Harry Carey Jr., Hill regular James Remar (who has a great knife fight sequence), Pamela Reed, Chris Mulkey, Peter Jason, and Edward Bunker.

This film was also the first collaboration between hill and composer Ry Cooder. Generally speaking, this film is an absolute must see for western and Hill fans, but just go into it knowing that it's a flawed film.