80's Month Day 15: The Long Riders

It's 80's Month. It's a Western Wednesday. It's 1980's The Long Riders

Above all else this film is unique in that it stars four sets of acting brothers; James Keach and Stacy Keach, David Carradine  Keith Carradine and Robert Carradine, Dennis Quaid and Randy Quaid, and finally Christopher Guest and Nicholas Guest. Now, you may be asking yourself 'Is the movie any good or is this just a novelty?'

Well, a bit of both. The movie is good but not all of the casting is ideal, in my opinion and the performances vary from really good to good enough. The Keach's, Carradine's, and Quaid's all play members of a gang with James Keach playing the leader Jesse James. One day, after a less than ideal bank robbery, Ed Miller (played by Dennis Quaid) is kicked out of the gang. The movie kind of meanders about a bit, but picks up and gets interesting again about 20mins later after a train robbery and the Pinkertons lead by a man named Mr. Rixley (played by James Whitmore Jr.) come after them. Around this time we're also introduced to Charley and Robert Ford (played by Christopher and Nicholas Guest respectively) who play a big role in the ending of the film. From there it's shootouts, a knife fight in a saloon, a bank robbery that goes very wrong (which leads to a pretty great action scene), and a solid ending.

Overall, it's an enjoyable movie and I found most of it really entertaining.

I give it a 4 out of 5.

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