Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.5

The Long Riders Blu-ray Movie Review

O Brothers, Here Art Thou, or, The Other Assassination of Jesse James

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater June 11, 2011

Talk about stunt casting. For his 1980 retelling of the near-mythical Jesse James story, The Long Riders, filmmaker Walter Hill (The Warriors, Wild Bill) hired several pairs—and, in one case, a trio—of actual siblings to play the many sets of brothers who take part in the tale. James Keach and Stacy Keach, who helped co-write the script, play Jesse and Frank James, while three sons of the John Carradine clan— David, Keith, and Robert—stand in for Cole, Jim, and Bob Younger, respectively. Finally, we have Dennis Quaid and his kooky brother Randy taking on the roles of Ed and Clell Miller, as well as Christopher and Nicholas Guest co-conspiring as Charley and Robert Ford, the brothers who orchestrated Jesse James’ death. Feeling overrun with names yet? If not, you will. One of the film’s main problems is that it tries to do too much with too many characters, short-shrifting them all in the process. Of course, the other difficulty facing The Long Riders is that it now faces inevitable comparisons to a far-better film about the James-Younger gang, Andrew Dominik’s The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Still, you have to at least give Walter Hill credit for helping to reinvigorate the western in a time when it was long-considered out of style. The Long Riders may not be the best of the Jesse James films, but it’s well-made and worth revisiting if you’re a fan of the outlaw genre.

Jesse James

The setting is post-Civil War Missouri, a time and place where the loss of the Confederacy still stings. Jesse James, who learned to hold-up banks while soldiering for the South, leads a posse of outlaws—a literal family—who have similarly fallen into this lucrative and disreputable profession. Although they’re feared, they’re glorified and supported too, viewed by the public as the Johnny Rebel equivalent of Robin Hood and his merry men, sticking it to the North by robbing Yankee trains and holding up stagecoaches. Director Walter Hill indulges in the gang’s notorious exploits, but he’s not out to beatify James and his gang. Rather, he tries to cut through the stuff of legend to get at the real men behind the myth.

The film opens with a bank robbery gone partly wrong. James and his crew make off with the cash, but not before Ed Miller’s itchy trigger finger results in a few dead bodies. “You’re through Ed, you ain’t gonna ride with me no more,” says Jesse, suffering from his own bullet wound, and it’s here that we see that the famed outlaw does indeed have a conscience. He doesn’t want innocent people to be killed. He may be a criminal, but otherwise he’s a pretty decent guy. After this botched hold-up, a subsequent train robbery, and a stagecoach hijacking, a number of determined Pinkerton agents—Yankees, all—are dispatched to track down James and his men. When the agents indiscriminately kill two innocent members of the James-Younger extended family, Jesse retaliates and the gang disbands to avoid arrest. They regroup eventually for a final ill-fated heist, and the lead Pinkerton detective (James Whitmore Jr.) hires the cowardly Ford brothers—wannabes who were denied entrance to Jesse’s circle—to take out their one-time idol.

The basics of the plot are familiar—I think we’re all aware of the historical fact that Jesse doesn’t make it out alive—so what separates The Long Riders from previous movies about the James-Younger gang, and what makes it feel like a prototype for The Assassination of Jesse James, is that Hill and his team of screenwriters put emphasis on character over action, giving the film a more measured, contemplative pace. Each member of the gang is given an individual arc and part to play in the overall story—however small—and Hill goes to great lengths to make sure they seem like people, not simply stock stereotypes. We see them as family men, men who ask questions about love, men who have their own proprietary code of loyalty and conduct. There’s no question that James and his boys are anti-heroes in the truest sense—they’re violent and morally flawed, but we’re meant to sympathize with them and not the Pinkerton agents, who come off as even more callous and corrupt despite being the “good guys.” The script’s psychological insights are shallow, however, and with so many characters to keep track of—especially after the group disbands—the film, which is episodic to begin with, starts to lose its focus.

The novelty casting does and doesn't work. Yes, the family resemblance makes it easy to buy these guys as brothers—because they are— but some of the actors just aren’t suited for their roles. The big one—and this obviously effects the tenor of the entire film—is that James Keach, dead-eyed and all too stoic, makes for a completely uncharismatic Jesse James. You couldn’t care less about him as a character. It’s also unfortunate that Randy Quaid gets a more sizeable role than his more talented brother Dennis—harsh but true—and that Christopher Guest, of Spinal Tap fame, is relegated to playing Charlie Ford, while his bro Nicholas, who’s primarily a voice actor, is cast as the cowardly Robert. The only dead- on casting decision is David Carradine as Cole Younger. With scraggly hair and a soul patch, David is excellent as the pleasure-seeking gunslinger, who has a hot and cold relationship with a sassy prostitute who goes by the appropriately whorish name Belle Starr (Pamela Reed). One of the best scenes in the film is when Cole has a bowie-knife fight with Belle’s half-Indian boyfriend, Sam (James Remar). The two circle around each other, held in close proximity by a length of black cloth clenched between their teeth. (Think: the spaghetti kiss in Lady and the Tramp.) I won’t spoil the outcome, but let’s just say that you’ll be wincing in pain along with the loser.

What the film absolutely gets right are the brutal action scenes and shoot-outs. Walter Hill was something of a student of Sam Peckinpah—Hill wrote the script for Peckinpah’s The Getaway—and you can see the influence of The Wild Bunch all over The Long Riders, especially in Hill’s adopted style of editing. If you want to play a drinking game that’ll get you properly smashed, take a shot every time someone in the film gets shot. There are exploding squibs galore, sending Crayola-red blood squirting every which way. The violence is bracing, and Hill doesn’t withhold the grisly imagery, like a bullet wound through the cheek or a knife sticking six inches deep in some poor bastard’s thigh. The perfect accompaniment to both the bloodshed and quieter, character-driven scenes is famed musicologist Ry Cooder’s fittingly old-timey score, played on period-accurate instruments. Cooder stops short of whistling “Dixie,” but you might be humming “I’m a Good Old Rebel” by the time The Long Riders is through.

The Long Riders Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

With a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer framed in the film's original 1.85:1 aspect ratio, The Long Riders makes for a pleasing viewing experience on Blu-ray, providing you don't expect the film to look pristine. While MGM usually takes the time to clean up the bigger, tent-pole films in their back catalog, releases of "smaller" films like this often get the no-frills transfer treatment. In a perfect world, every movie from the past would get a loving frame-by-frame restoration, but let's be realistic. Besides, this hands-off approach does have its benefits. Yes, black/white specks and other bits of debris frequently pop up in the frame, but the image itself hasn't been unnaturally tampered with or boosted. Grain is entirely natural—I warn you, it's a bit thick at times—and edge enhancement isn't a concern. Clarity is inconsistent, but this seems entirely source-related. There are close-ups that look sharp and crisp, with plenty of visible fine detail—like individual whiskers of Jesse James' Just For Men-style beard—but much of the film has a soft, slightly spongy quality. The dusty, muted color palette gives the picture a lightly antiqued appearance, and while blacks can be hazy and splotchy in low light situations, contrast tends to be good. Aside from some clipped highlights—leading to some blotchy bright spots on the actors' foreheads—I didn't spot any compression or exposure problems. As a whole, the film looks better here than it did on DVD, but you certainly won't be bowled over by the picture quality.

The Long Riders Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Those expecting beefed-up 5.1 surround sound may be disappointed by the film's DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono mix, but there's really nothing wrong with this track. Although real speaker involvement could've bolstered the shoot-out sequences, making them even more brutal, the front-and-center sound design works fine. Perhaps "sound design" is too gracious a phrase. In many ways, this mix is curiously—and effectively, I think—old fashioned, with a flattened dynamic range and sound effects that have a somewhat canned quality. Basically, the film sounds like a western from the 1950s or '60s. Maybe this is what Hill was going for, I dunno. Regardless, the track does what it needs to do with little flourish and it gets all the essentials right. Dialogue is clear and intelligible throughout, and Ry Cooder's old-timey score is nicely reproduced. The disc also includes a number mono foreign-language dubs in Dolby Digital, plus several subtitle options.

The Long Riders Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The sole, lonely bonus feature on this disc is the film's theatrical trailer (1080p, 2:25).

The Long Riders Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has since surpassed The Long Riders as the best film about the legendary bandit, but Walter Hill's take on the story has its merits. Although it's not a perfect film—the novelty casting doesn't quite work, for one—this is still a solidly entertaining western with some gruesome shootouts and some great scenes of the outlaws being outlaws, plundering, whoring, and carousing. MGM's Blu-ray shows no signs of restoration work, but the transfer is true to source and a definite upgrade from DVD. Recommended.