Travel hopefully in life.

Last night I watched The Long Riders, a 1980 action-drama about the infamous James-Younger gang, terrors of the post-Civil War Southern landscape. I jumped into it on my step-dad's recommendation, because he also enjoys some good cowboy history and can usually be trusted to have decent taste in relevant media. He sold me on this one by explaining that the producers hired actual real sets of brothers to play the Jameses, Youngers, Millers, and Fords. (Portrayed by the Keatses, the Carradines, the Quaids, and the Guests, respectively.)

I can't say I regret the watch, though it suffers from some common problems of the era—non-Native persons portraying Native characters, animal stunts that I suspect were not designed with safety and comfort to the animals in mind, etc. It's also got a bit of that 1980s shoot-em-up syndrome where blood sprays wildly from gunshot wounds and a single revolver slug to the shoulder is enough to throw a man off his horse in a dramatic, duster-billowing spin. (At one point, Jesse et. al. circle up a couple of Pinkertons and open fire on them so viciously that both men spring backwards through a window in tandem.)

Like most Westerns, it was on the slower side, although I enjoyed the pacing overall outside of a couple of drawn-out fight scenes. It focused more on character moments than an over-arching action/adventure plot which was nice, although I will warn everyone that the Jameses, Youngers, etc. got their start as post-Confederate bushwhackers before they become infamous bank and train robbers so there's a strong bent of good ol' boy, secessionist pride suffusing the narrative though it never veers into full-out racism.

There was a pretty decent cast of female characters, too. Although they got written into a corner at times, I actually really enjoyed what little of them there was to see on-screen. Most of them knew what they wanted and went out and got it and stood up for themselves, which was refreshing. Even the romantic interests were less "swoon into the robber's arms despite his dangerous lifestyle assuming it will all work out because love" types and more "I'm making a decision to stand by my man even though I don't necessarily agree with his choices and have open discussions about it that neither of us particularly enjoy but need to be aired anyway" types, which was a pleasant surprise. They're still very much supporting characters to the men's narrative but it wasn't so unpalatable.

The only big disappointment to that end was the needless romance the writers/producers/directors/whoever cooked up between Coleman Younger and Belle Starr. The actress they had playing her was amazing, and Belle Starr IRL is a more interesting character than her sexually charged arguing with Cole Younger gave her credit for so it was a shame that she didn't get to shine outside of that role.

By far the crowning glory of the film was its music, which was a rollicking soundtrack of bluegrass and folk, with a close-up feature of a gentleman playing the honest-to-God spoons at one point.

The narrative followed the actual events of the downfall of the James-Younger gang fairly well, though I'll admit to not being as familiar with the nuances of their lives as I am with other outlaws of the same period so I might've missed some things. It was a little ham-handedly dramatized in places but overall a pretty fun watch, if you've got an hour and a half to kill.