American Outlaws **
Directed by: Les Mayfield
Starring: Colin Farrell, Scott Caan, Ali Larter, Timothy Dalton, Gabriel Macht
Rated: PG-13 (violence, alcohol)
American Outlaws is something of an old-school western. But not a cool one like The Searchers. It’s more like a serial that would show before the feature. And that’s stretching it.
American Outlaws is a story about Jesse James and his gang, robbing banks, playing Robin Hood, all of it based on legend, rather than fact. History is just a suggestion in this movie, rather than something that is binding.
The movie starts off with promise – the James-Younger-Gang-To-Be is part of a guerilla platoon, killing Union soldiers. After the battle, they are informed that the Civil War is over. So, the gang heads back home to Liberty, MO, where they hope to be farmers. But, it turns out that Thaddeus Rains (Harris Yulin), Railroad Tycoon, is forcing farmers to sell their land to the railroad. (boo! hiss!) So, the gang decides that they will wage an economic war against the railroad – steal its money so it can’t be a jerk anymore. (yay!) This, of course, has nothing to do with history. And, any sort of theme or mood that the movie is trying to set goes away quickly.
The gang is made up of Jesse (Farrell), his brother Frank (Macht), cousins Cole (Caan), Bob (Will McCormack), and Jim (Gregory Smith) Younger, Loni Packwood (Joe Stevens), Comanche Tom (Nathaniel Arcand), and Zee Mimms (Larter) (Jesse’s first-cousin and wife-to-be). There may have been other members, but, they really don’t matter. None of the characters were fleshed-out beyond their stereotypes – Jesse is impetuous, Frank is smart, Cole is a thug, Comanche Tom is a stoic Indian, etc. Opposing the gang is the big, mean railroad and Allen Pinkerton (Timothy Dalton, doing a Sean Connery impersonation), founder of Pinkerton Security and the Secret Service.
The movie had trouble finding what it wanted to be. Did it want to be a straight Western? A romanticized view of some bad people doing bad things? A comedy like Shanghai Noon? It was a Western because there were horses and trains. It glossed over the real history of the James-Younger Gang by leaving out the murders that they committed during their robberies. There were some lines that were laugh-out-loud funny, but I’m not sure that they were meant to be.
I am fascinated by America’s fascination with ‘outlaws’. Bonnie and Clyde is a terrific example of this. Bonnie and Clyde were bad, bad people. They killed. They robbed. And they are cultural icons. Yet, we don’t see heroic tales of carjackers or pimps like we do of pirates, robbers and outlaws.
American Outlaws would have made a decent made-for-TV movie, but it’s a bit empty for a cinematic release. The characters didn’t bring out any emotions in me. For as much as the characters talk about their love of killing people, the violence is mostly of the ‘stuff blowing up’ and ‘grab your chest and fall down’ school of film, rather than the ‘first 20 minutes of Saving Private Ryan’ school of film. The characterizations are inconsistent – Jesse is portrayed as charming, a born leader, and, for one scene, more dangerous than Hannibal Lecter; Cole is a hot-headed psycho, but doesn’t really do much of anything more than bluster. At the beginning, the Gang is trying to bankrupt the railroad and distribute the wealth. Then they were concerned about who got top-billing on the wanted posters, and whose ‘portrait’ looked the best. No explaination is given for the change. Mostly, however, the movie was just boring. I couldn’t become emotionally involved with the characters. I’m not saying that the film was poorly-paced – it wasn’t. From a technical standpoint, the film is just fine. The camera work was decent, if not fantastic; the editing did what it was supposed to do; the sound design did its job, too. But, the acting wasn’t anything to write home about. The acting wasn’t bad – it was just ‘there’. I imagine that kids will like it, even though it’s not really a children’s movie. It seems like it is aimed at the teen market. I am not, however, a part of that demographic.
If you’re looking for a good western, rent Unforgiven or Tombstone. If you’re looking for a cowboy comedy, check out Shanghai Noon or Blazing Saddles. If you’re in the mood for something that could wind up being a campy cult-classic, give American Outlaws a shot.
