Silverado

Silverado (Columbia, 1985) ends with Kevin Costner riding off to California with Scott Glenn and yelling from his horse, "We'll be back!" Of course, they never were. Obviously that's no guarantee of a sequel, and it was an all-star cast. Might have been nice, though! Anyone know if Lawrence Kasdan et al. tried particularly hard to put one together? Thanks.

Directed and Produced by: Lawrence Kasdan
Written By: Mark and Lawrence Kasdan

Staring: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Danny Glover, and Kevin Costner

"Rambling man Emmett (Scott Glenn) assembles a group of misfit cowboys (Kevin Costner), (Kevin Kline, Danny Glover). After helping a group of settlers track down a pack of thieves, Emmett and his men descend on the troubled town of Silverado to seek their fortunes. Soon after arriving, they discover that the town has fallen into the grasp of greedy rancher Ethan McKendrick (Ray Baker) and corrupt Sheriff Cobb (Brian Dennehy) with whom many of Emmett's men have unfinished business." - From Google

This was a really fun movie that's a strange and wonderful amalgamation of The Seven Samurai and The Wild Bunch. The movie gets right down to business from the start with a shootout with Emmett (Scott Glenn) and some seemingly unknown gunfighters. You know you're going to be in for a treat. Soon enough Emmett meets up with our real protagonist Paden (Kevin Kline) in a small town. This is my main problem issue, but I'll come back to that in a bit. Scott Glenn and Kevin Kline witness Malachai (Danny Glover) get thrown out of town (by John Cleese no less) for being black and don't much care for it. Of course they all get thrown into jail and it just so happens their off screen buddy Jake (Kevin Costner) is already in there.

They justly break out and find some settlers who's gold was just stolen by bandits. Being the kind hearted gunslingers they are they're quick to help the people out. From here it's a lot of fun and games with humour mixed into dramatic sequences pumpped full of action. It's exactly what I was hoping for when I put it on. The real drama comes from Paden and Cobb (Brian Dennehy aka the sheriff from First Blood). Cobb is the corrupt sheriff who was best friends with Paden in another time. We've already learned Paden has a moral code and he's seeing Cobb, whom he thought was just but has lost his way. Paden is compromised, he needs work and Cobb's got it for him but he's not sure he can ethically do this, and that's the heart of the story right there. It's a great story of a man's soul searching and also my main issue with the plot.

Why did we open on Emmett? the first 15 minutes of the movie was him fighting off people. He coincidentally comes across Paden whom now the movie will mostly revolve around. I was ready to watch the Emmett movie and now it's Paden?! You get snippets of the other cowboy's slice of life, Mal's relationship with his father and sister, Jake's extended family's torment.

Paden meets a girl whom he's enamoured with, well we don't see her again after the scene where they express the reason they totally can't be together wink, wink. There's foreshadowing here that should have been looped back to. Maybe it's implied at the end but it's subtle as can be. We don't see this lady again. Instead Paden just has a soft spot for the saloon owner Stella (Linda Hunt) whom he has no love interest with but is clearly invested in her plea for altruistic reason. All this to say that Emmett seemed to be more in-line with being the reason you tuned into this. He's more of the D'Artagnan character of these cowboy musketeers. I feel like the writers had him as the main character at one point but it changed over time but had written elements that were just too good not to film.

All this to say the story and pacing moved very smoothly, there's a few elements you could cut and not loose anything emotionally (all of Jeff Goldbloom). But at the end of the day you'll like watching every second of this film. It grips you in all the right places for some edge of your seat action.

It feels like it could have been made in the 50's/ 60's with John Wayne as the corrupt sheriff Cobb and Clint Eastwood, Charles Bronson, Sidney Poitier, and Steve McQueen as the cowboys. Aside from a few technical shots the picture didn't really need (like the stampeed) it has the right nostalgic setting for a western 30 years prior. It takes itself with more care than most 80/90s westerns did at the time (looking at you Young Guns and Wyatt Earp). This is a great picture for someone who saw Unforgiven, Appaloosa, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, The Searchers, etc and wanted something similar but different.

Highly recommend and I think I'm going to watch it again soon.