Product Details

• Actors: David Carradine, Stacy Keach, Dennis Quaid, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine
• Directors: Walter Hill
• Writers: Stacy Keach, James Keach, Walter Hill, Bill Bryden, Steven Smith
• Producers: Stacy Keach, James Keach
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English, Swedish
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: September 15, 1998
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (71 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0792839161
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #407,978 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This terrific Walter Hill Western follows the careers of the James and Younger brothers--and uses the nifty idea of casting actual clans of acting siblings in the roles. Thus, the James brothers are played by James and Stacy Keach; the Youngers by David, Keith, and Robert Carradine; the Millers by Randy and Dennis Quaid; and the Fords by Christopher and Nicholas Guest. Hill, working with an evocative Ry Cooder score, creates a film that is at once breathtakingly exciting and elegiac in its treatment of these post-Civil War outlaws. The Keaches in particular bring a surprising dignity to the roles of Frank and Jesse James, while David Carradine is a hoot as Cole Younger--and the Quaids mimic real life (as it was for them then) in their battles as the Miller brothers. Bloody, to be sure, but also bloody good. --Marshall Fine

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An uneven guilty pleasure, May 8, 2000

By 

Doug Vaughn - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Long Riders [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I don't know why I am such a sucker for this film. It is too long, uneven, very slow in parts and certainly doesn't provide a happy ending. But it is one of the most honest yet entertaining westerns I have ever seen. The qimmick of using the Keach brothers as Frank and Jesse James and the Carradine brothers as the three members of the Younger family (plus throwing in the Quaid brothers for good measure)works wonderfully well. Always picturesque, frequently violent and bloody, this film evokes the unstable time just after the Civil War when the James and Younger gang were at their height. A terrific contrast is drawn between the James men, who are depicted as dedicated homebodies when not at "work", and the Youngers who are depicted as boisterous hell-raisers. Pamela Reed as Belle Starr is a standout in an already excellent cast. When Cole Younger and her husband square off for a knife fight she just smiles and declares "You boys sure do keep me entertained." The same could be said for this film. It is by far the best Jesse James film ever made, and with its sound track by Rye Cooder, a pleasant experience to revisit every year or so.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adult Western, Well Done., August 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Long Riders [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This appears to be a pretty accurate account of the James-Younger Gang, focusing on their Northfield, Minnesota bank robbery.

The James and the Youngers are protrayed as outlaws who were influenced by thier civil war service in and around Missouri. They had killed and stolen in service to their cause and then kept it up after the war ended. But they are not shown in a particularly heroic light.

Instead, they are shown as clannish desperadoes who are supported by the locals. David Carradine in particular does a good job as Cole Younger. The movie does a good job showing the peer pressure put on them after the Pinkerton people get their brother killed. It also shows the Ford brothers selling out Jesse James' life to the Pinkertons.

It does leave out the part in Northfield where the citizenry supposedly went into a hardware store and began grabbing rifles off the shelves with which to repel the invaders.

This movie gets gorey and gritty in spots, has cathouse scenes, and is not a "cowboy" movie to show to young kids.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Walter Hill's best film -- an unsung classic, March 21, 2001

By 

Claude Avary "West Coast Reader" (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Long Riders (DVD)

Just as the 80s were beginning and the Western was about to take a sad, decade long sleep, Walter Hill, fresh from his unexpected success with the gang film "The Warriors," turned out this unique and utterly remarkable Western about the James-Younger gang. Using real-life brothers to play the outlaw kin (two Keaches, three Carradines, two Quaids, two Guests), Hill crafts an intense character study that plays like a collaboration between Western great John Ford ("Stagecoach") and Japanese master Akira Kurosawa ("Yojimbo", a film Walter Hill later remade as "Last Man Standing").

"The Long Riders" is close to plotless, but it paints a fascinating picture of the gang and the family and community ties that keep them together (the Ford influence right there...community was his great theme) while delving into the nuances of each character (this is where the fraternal casting really helps out). And Hill acheives all this depth in only 100 minutes! The action sequences are the best in a Western since Sam Peckinpah; the Northfield robbery is particularly striking and brutal.

Aside from Hill and all the great actors, cinematography Ric Waite and composer Ry Cooder deserve special mention for the film's success. Waite creates an authentic "period" look with his deep, glowing photography; the DVD transfer captures this perfectly for the first time. Cooder's score is completely against the grain for the time: small, intimate, and filled with forgotten folk tunes that help paint a picture of a united, family-built community. It is almost a companion piece for David Mansfield's equally intimate score for "Heaven's Gate," released the same year as "The Long Riders."

The DVD has no extras except for a trailer, but the film is so wonderful and so rewards repeat viewings that you should grab a copy of it right away. Believe me, you'll be stunned by this piece of film art.

"I ain't aiming to do nothing...I'm doing it!"