The origins, exploits and the ultimate fate of the James gang is told in a sympathetic portrayal of the bank robbers made up of brothers who begin their legendary bank raids because of revenge.
David Carradine Keith Carradine Robert Carradine James Keach Stacy Keach Dennis Quaid Randy Quaid Kevin Brophy Harry Carey, Jr. Christopher Guest Nicholas Guest Shelby Leverington Felice Orlandi Pamela Reed James Remar Fran Ryan Savannah Smith Boucher Amy Stryker James Whitmore Jr. John Bottoms West Buchanan Edward Bunker Martina Deignan Allan Graf Chris Mulkey Thomas Myers Marlise Karlin Glenn Robards Tim Rossovich Show All…
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France
Cannes Film Festival
USAR
FranceTP
Spain16
ItalyT
JapanR18+
Netherlands16
Denmark15
Hungary18
UK15
Netherlands16
Netherlands16
Denmark
France
Hungary
Italy
Japan
Netherlands
Spain
UK
USA
“The Long Riders” goes for the gimmick while styling itself in the Western attire of genre legend Sam Peckinpah.
Director Walter Hill - who penned the screenplay for Peckinpah’s own “The Getaway,” finally got to make a Western himself in “Riders;” after an early career spent incarnating the genre’s tropes in his other works.
It turns out… he’s just more interesting when transplanting the Western to other locales.
“Hard Times” was the Western as a boxing flick, and “The Driver” was the Western as a gangster heist film. “Riders” shoots straight inside its genre lines as a retelling of the Jesse James myth.
Perhaps aware that the time of the classical cowboy had long since passed into tv rerun territory,…
Action! - The Unlikely Rumble: Hill v Hyams
The moment had come, a Hill picture that left me cold, and a break for our close buddy Peter Hyams from getting his arse kicked.
That is not to imply that the film is without merit. The angle of having this officer go after Jesse James' gang, plus there's the tension that the viewer is privy to in respect to the connection between James and Robert Ford, and how it's all going to end. Although the film tends to romanticize Jesse, which was also a good choice for the plot as makes the film feel somewhat fresh. The film also plays very much like a classic Western, which helps with the picture…
At first it seems like a gimmick to cast three Carradines, two Keachs, two Guests, and two Quaids, but damn… it works. There are some great weathered faces in this film, and I love when the women in westerns seem like they could knock over a bank or two themselves.
Walter Hill might be my favorite grimy 70s/80s genre-hopping director. He’s not flashy, but he’s not dull, either. He’s got technical skill and impeccable taste. That last bank robbery is Wild Bunch-level mayhem.
Bought this on Blu almost three years ago and only just got to it. It’s famed for casting four sets of real-life brothers in the lead roles, but Ry Cooder’s score is what lingers. Walter Hill always does one slightly subversive thing in his films. Here it’s all about the landscape of a Missouri story—no Monument Valley grandeur or dusty OK Corral horse pens here. There’s riverside beachfront and grassy knolls all over. The Keach Bros, who co-wrote and produced the movie, were keen on making a dream-like portrait of the James Gang’s demise. (Andrew Dominik got to that about 35 years later.) Instead, this has that early ‘80s veneer where the cinematography is too careful about favoring star angles,…
out of all the famous slow-motion stylists in cinema, i'd say that walter hill is my absolute favorite practitioner of the form, yes, even more than john woo or peckinpah or the wachowski sisters. maybe it's because the finale of this is an unmatched balletic hailstorm of bullets and squibs, all excruciatingly going off in tandem with a dizzying soundmix that maximizes the confusion and impact of the scene. maybe it's because hill seems to exclusively use slow-mo to make his audience viscerally experience the same torturous pain that his characters are undergoing. maybe it's because this is one of the few films that actually manages to capture via visuals the sheer weight of a metal object puncturing your lungs like a balloon, slowly evacuating your body and leaving you to die an agonizing death in the dirt. it's a combination of all these factors; walter hill rarely employs a cinematic technique without making the most out of it.
90 minutes of those slow mo peckinpah shootouts and this would be in my all time top 50
The James Gang mostly consists of two families and friends led by Jesse James who band together to rob banks and railroad cars in the old west. When the Pinkertons are hired by the railroad and brought in from Chicago to solve their problem a war begins between the entrenched gang and the infamous Chicago mercenaries.
Last night was officially November 30th so it was the last night of my Westerns month. Unfortunately I had one too many cold beers and fell asleep with about forty-five minutes left to go, so I guess December 1st will have to do. Walter Hill, the famed director behind The Warriors took his first shot at the western genre in 1980, so what better…
”Most the people around here are related to each other, one way or another, so they’re very clannish.”
Walter Hill’s first western is a solid Peckinpah inspired shoot ‘em up with some unbelievable stunt casting.
Check this out:
James Keach as Jesse James
Stacy Keach as Frank James
David Carradine as Cole Younger
Keith Carradine as Jim Younger
Robert Carradine as Bob Younger
Dennis Quaid as Ed Miller
Randy Quad as Clell Miller
Christopher Guest as Charley Ford
Nicholas Guest as the Coward Robert Ford
BONUS POINTS for casting Edward Bunker and that fantastic scene stealing turn from Pamela Reed.
”What does the winner get?”
“Nothing you both ain’t already had.”
This rules, out-Peckinpahs Peckinpah in most of the ways that matter, and without the acid toxicity he brings to most of his films -- instead this feels wholly aware of the true nature of these guys and their world, good bad and otherwise. And I mean, come on, look at all the Carradines.
Something really ominous about the phrase "John Carradine (scenes deleted)."
I generally tend to like Walter Hill movies, even the "bad" ones.
This was a first time watch of The Long Riders and it's definitely not a "bad" movie - in fact it's a pretty damn impressive Western.
The stunt casting of real life siblings was pretty fun - with both David and Keith Carradine being the standouts. The film has beautiful locations and excellent cinematography. Like all Hill films, the action scenes are filmed exceptionally and they are absolutely brutal. This was an awesome ride. Would make a good opener to a double-feature with this and Andrew Dominik's Jesse film.
Maybe the least revisionist New Hollywood western, grounded in so many ways (casting real brothers to play brothers, exacting historical research, etc) but otherwise it trades in Fordian vistas and character, revealing much in the ominous glances of the Ford brothers or even the dull, blank slate that is Jesse. The violence mines Peckinpah but uses slo-mo not to enhance the grisliness but to stress a strange kind of dream beauty. Hill pays so much tribute that he even ropes in Ford regular Harry Carey Jr. for a bit part solely so everyone can approach him with respect and pay tribute.
The Long Riders is a dirty, violent and bloody little western from one of my favorite directors, Walter Hill. Not my favorite of his, but a solid film with a great cast and some incredible shootouts. Absolutely worth discovering for fans of the Western genre who have never seen the film.
