Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7171 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-06-11
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Dubbed, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English, Swedish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Special Features
1.85 Wide Screen
16:9 Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 9
French\German\Italian\Spanish
English\German
English
Region 2
Dolby Digital Mono English French German Italian Spanish
Dolby Digital Mono
Original Theatrical Trailer
Interactive Menu
Chapter Selection
Danish\Dutch\English\French\German\Italian\Norwegian\Spanish\Swedish

Synopsis
This violent Western follows four sets of brothers--the Youngers, the Jameses, the Millers, and the Fords--who band together for a crime spree across Missouri. Law enforcers, meanwhile, prove inept in their attempts to apprehend the renegade cowboys, who are busy arguing among themselves. Director Walter Hill's film features four groups of real-life brothers--the Keaches, the Carradines, the Quaids, and the Guests.

Customer Reviews

...Ouch!
Well....smack my backside with five planks o'Carolina pine (Messrs Keach & Carradine). This folks is what happens when you get a bunch of mediocre tv actors who never really had what it took to carry a movie on the big screen and put them in a movie on the big screen.

I expected so much more from this. What with the ensemble of brothers and all. But the quality just isn't there. Of course the Quaids are great but they're barely given a chance. This is clearly a labour of love for the Keach's, they executive produced it, co-wrote it and spend much of the time vying for center stage with the Carradines (!?!). Having seen the Wagner and Pitt films on this subject matter recently (see reviews) I have to say that this comes in a poor third. I couldn't make out if the Northfield shootout was an amateurish homage to Peckinpah or a bad imitation as a last ditch attempt to somehow improve the piece.

If you're a fan of the line-up then this'll be your tv heaven. If not -it'll be a hellish experience that'll take some time to recover from. ....I'm over it now. ....But don't say I didn't warn you. Adios.

Good movie...but why the cuts?!
I`ve watched this movie in its entirety several times in the last few months; and I`ve skipped forward and watched the Northfield sequence so many times I`ve lost count. I would recommend you get a copy of this underrated and unique Western.

Just one quibble, though. I discovered only recently, when the movie was shown on tv, that the scene where Bob Younger(Robert Carradine) and horse stumble and fall has been deleted on the DVD - and also, the scene in which the horses crash through the second pane of glass and stumble and fall, has been shortened, presumably because the censors deem it politicaly incorrect to show the horses being injured. It`s somewhat ironic, then, that a national television channel can show the movie without cuts, and yet the DVD has been cut. (And what about the Grand National, where horses inevitably get injured and have to be `put down`, and all for the sake of sport...which is shown live on tv every year...) Every time I watch that part of the movie, I find it so frustrating that it`s been cut. There may be other cuts as well, because that was the only part of the (original, uncut)movie I watched when it was shown on tv.

Well realised and portrayed yet stylistically derivitive and underwelming
Walter Hill is an impressive director who has delivered some memorable, distinctive and touching works, nearly all flawed. He has also given out some totally boring and flat, uninspired movies (Last Man Standing). Yet all his cinema seems to show his penchant for basically copying the style of others. Geronimo was charming and one of his best and yet certainly reminiscent of John Ford with not as effective forced sentiment and message. The aformentioned LMS was a ridiculous rip off of Leone and Kurosawa yet adding a thirties gangster dimension (?!). Southern Comfort (although I have yet to watch it)seems a little to close to Deliverance and the lovely Broken Trail was let down by a cliched ending and plot progressions and a corny sentimentality which was moving if decently pretentious. That his films seem to be trying to get away with plaugteurism is evident here. The nice and unique, gentle flow and picturesque hue of the movie is handled well and the acting is expert. This is a very enjoyable film and memorably fine, yet when it comes to gunfights, the action is perfectly choreographed...just as Peckinoah would do it. The first siege on their bunkhouse in the woods is cut to the exact rythms of what ends up as a mixture of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and The Wild Bunch, the latter film taking over in the final robbery gone wrong sequence which mirrors the opening bank raid to the extent that you have horses crashing through a window shot from the inside. This shot in particuar is a good example: the camera angle may be slightly straighter and wider and it is still an astonishing shot, yet as with the rest of these parts of the film, its similarity is too much to issue any respect.
But ultimately it is a respectable work and with some nicely worked love stories incorperated and one that doesn't work culminating in a somewhat strange and overdone knifefight. The film offers some great set peices and character interaction with a nice relalisation of things.
Forgivably if annoyingly flawed.