I like westerns. I'd go so far as to say I love them. So I was expecting a pretty good afternoon when I sat down to watch The Long Riders, a tale of the final months of Jesse James and his gang, starring David Carradine and brothers, Dennis and Randy Quaid, Stacy and James Keach, and Nicholas and Christopher Guest (yep, that Christopher Guest). A solid cast of working actors, a strong foundation for a story, and hey - it's a western! Westerns rock!
I'll be honest up front: I couldn't make myself finish it.
The Long Riders is built on interchanging slice-of-life scenes with brief but heavy action sequences. I suppose it's intended to show the awkwardness of the outlaw life, that being weeks or months of tedium followed by a violent disruption of some sort. Here's the big problem: a story whose ending is common knowledge needs to be better than the average film in order to be engaging and interesting, and to make the viewer want to see it through. This film doesn't have that certain je ne sais quoi; in other words, I was so freakin' bored that I turned it off about two-thirds in because I just couldn't take it any more. On top of being bored out of my skull, I was quite disappointed about that fact, because David Carradine is always great to watch, and it's rare to see Christopher Guest as a villain - and he's a great one, too!
The Long Riders is just over an hour and a half, but it felt as long as Heaven's Gate. Erk. I'd rate this film as "watch at your own risk."
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment