Silverado (A- or 3.5/4 stars)
Right on the heels of Body Heat & The Big Chill, Lawrence Kasdan produces, co-writes & directs 1985's 'Silverado', a visually spectacular Western tale about 4 misfit drifters who travel to the titular town & confront some baddies. The plot has these disparate desperado cowboys coming together to save Silverado from its dreadful saloon owner, who also happens to be Sheriff Cobb (Brian Dennehy - boy, does he know how to play villain), as well as ruthless cattle baron, Ethan McKendrick (Ray Baker). The drifters: rambling Emmett (Scott Glenn), nice guy Paden (Kevin Kline), Emmett's spirited, but wayward younger brother, Jake (Kevin Costner), & the vengeful black farmer, Mal (Danny Glover), who is hoping to reconnect with his folks.
The movie luxuriates in showing the various heroics of each of these cowboys from the time they meet in Turley, a nearby town to Silverado run by a despotic English sheriff (John Cleese). Mal lays waste to the saloon when not served by the racist proprietor & is booted from town by the sheriff; Jake is set to hang for winning a fair gun duel; while Paden is thrown in jail for killing the man who stole his cowboy hat and drew on him 1st. The next a.m., Emmett busts them out of Turley jail & they escape with the aid of Mal's rifle expertise to hold off the oncoming posse.
On the road, the 4 retrieve - from an outlaw gang - the strongbox of silver stolen from a settler's wagon train, & then go their separate ways to Silverado. The brothers stay at the house of their married sister, Paden works in the town saloon, then takes a job as a pit boss with his former outlaw pal, Cobb, and Mal's father is eventually murdered by McKendrick's henchmen who tried to steal his land. When amoral Cobb & rapacious McKendrick go too far and burn down the home of the brothers' sister & kidnap her son ... the 4 unlikely heroes unite to take on their common enemies. Action ensues.
This film covers the typical Western goings-on: a saloon fist-fight, many exciting shoot-outs, an incident over a stolen horse, a big stampede, a house on fire, a prison-break, an evil rancher running the town, a corrupt sheriff working closely with said rancher, the climactic High Noon-like gun duel, & the heroes parting ways at the end to ride off in the sunset; Mal with his sister (Lynn Whitfield), Paden with a pioneer woman (Rosanna Arquette), and the brothers up for another adventure. We've seen all of this before. But as an homage to the amazing Westerns from the 1950s - particularly John Ford's The Searchers (1956) - Kasdan's 'Silverado' overcomes the old styled Western tropes to be a very entertaining film in its own right.
This film's greatest asset, other than the cast, is its sense of, well, fun. Despite the 130 minute run time, the energy never lets up. It is not a comedy, but it contains great humor, and though it is not an overly heavy film {plot or themes}, there is great tension in how everything plays out. I loved Bruce Broughton's rollicking music score. The look of 'Silverado' is beyond reproach - with gorgeous panoramic desert landscape cinematography by John Bailey, and an incredible Old West town that was built by a fantastic set design team in a remote area of New Mexico. It has since been used in many a subsequent western, like Young Guns (1988), Lonesome Dove (1989), Wyatt Earp (1994), Wild Wild West (1999) & All the Pretty Horses (2000).
Scott Glenn & Kevin Kline make an early impact. Danny Glover has powerful moments as Mal. And though he's not in the film as much, Kevin Costner leaves the biggest impression; stealing scenes as Emmett's younger, happy-go-lucky brother with an eye for the ladies. I also loved John Cleese as the despot lawman; Linda Hunt as Stella, the diminutive saloon owner with a heart of gold; Jeff Goldblum as a slimy gambler; & Lynn Whitfield as Mal's resourceful sister. Kasdan gives his black characters real agency in the plot; something you almost never saw in westerns before. 'Silverado' doesn't re-invent the genre, but it is still an action-packed adventure that comes across with infectious enthusiasm by those in front of & behind the camera.
The movie luxuriates in showing the various heroics of each of these cowboys from the time they meet in Turley, a nearby town to Silverado run by a despotic English sheriff (John Cleese). Mal lays waste to the saloon when not served by the racist proprietor & is booted from town by the sheriff; Jake is set to hang for winning a fair gun duel; while Paden is thrown in jail for killing the man who stole his cowboy hat and drew on him 1st. The next a.m., Emmett busts them out of Turley jail & they escape with the aid of Mal's rifle expertise to hold off the oncoming posse.
On the road, the 4 retrieve - from an outlaw gang - the strongbox of silver stolen from a settler's wagon train, & then go their separate ways to Silverado. The brothers stay at the house of their married sister, Paden works in the town saloon, then takes a job as a pit boss with his former outlaw pal, Cobb, and Mal's father is eventually murdered by McKendrick's henchmen who tried to steal his land. When amoral Cobb & rapacious McKendrick go too far and burn down the home of the brothers' sister & kidnap her son ... the 4 unlikely heroes unite to take on their common enemies. Action ensues.
This film covers the typical Western goings-on: a saloon fist-fight, many exciting shoot-outs, an incident over a stolen horse, a big stampede, a house on fire, a prison-break, an evil rancher running the town, a corrupt sheriff working closely with said rancher, the climactic High Noon-like gun duel, & the heroes parting ways at the end to ride off in the sunset; Mal with his sister (Lynn Whitfield), Paden with a pioneer woman (Rosanna Arquette), and the brothers up for another adventure. We've seen all of this before. But as an homage to the amazing Westerns from the 1950s - particularly John Ford's The Searchers (1956) - Kasdan's 'Silverado' overcomes the old styled Western tropes to be a very entertaining film in its own right.
This film's greatest asset, other than the cast, is its sense of, well, fun. Despite the 130 minute run time, the energy never lets up. It is not a comedy, but it contains great humor, and though it is not an overly heavy film {plot or themes}, there is great tension in how everything plays out. I loved Bruce Broughton's rollicking music score. The look of 'Silverado' is beyond reproach - with gorgeous panoramic desert landscape cinematography by John Bailey, and an incredible Old West town that was built by a fantastic set design team in a remote area of New Mexico. It has since been used in many a subsequent western, like Young Guns (1988), Lonesome Dove (1989), Wyatt Earp (1994), Wild Wild West (1999) & All the Pretty Horses (2000).
Scott Glenn & Kevin Kline make an early impact. Danny Glover has powerful moments as Mal. And though he's not in the film as much, Kevin Costner leaves the biggest impression; stealing scenes as Emmett's younger, happy-go-lucky brother with an eye for the ladies. I also loved John Cleese as the despot lawman; Linda Hunt as Stella, the diminutive saloon owner with a heart of gold; Jeff Goldblum as a slimy gambler; & Lynn Whitfield as Mal's resourceful sister. Kasdan gives his black characters real agency in the plot; something you almost never saw in westerns before. 'Silverado' doesn't re-invent the genre, but it is still an action-packed adventure that comes across with infectious enthusiasm by those in front of & behind the camera.