I was watching TNT the other night and came
across a minor masterpiece that I had seen before, but it merits
re-recognition. Walter Hill's "The Long Riders."
The story of the James-Younger (and Miller)
gang, Hill cast the Keaches as Frank and Jesse James, the
Carradines as the three Youngers, and the Quaids as the Millers
(he also throws in the Guest brothers as the duo who eventually
shoot Jesse). It comes off not in least bit gimickry. There is a
naturalness to the interplay between the men that makes every
scene easy and true.
Hill also presents a reasonable facsimile of
Peckinpah-style screen violence, while setting forth a keen
depiction of rural tradition and family loyalty . His scenes in
the Missouri woods, whilst the gang hides out, are well-crafted
and authentic, his Texas bar fight by Bowie knife is inspired
Western legend, and the Northfield, Minnesota bank debacle is
unforgettably haunting. Hill shoots high speed escape by horse
interspersed with slow-motion shots of the gang being shot up,
commensurate with an eerily slow-soundtrack that purports to
track the actual bullet and its impact above the slooooooow
distorted sounds of hoof beats, screams, horse whinnies, and
thuds.
Hill also comfortably alternates the mythic and
the mundane about the brothers, and Pamela Reed as Belle Starr
almost takes the movie. Her exchange with Robert Carradine is
memorable as she sits, dressed to the nines on her carriage on
the street, uninvited to a Younger wedding.
