American Outlaws

Released in 2001, "American Outlaws" is yet another rendition of Jesse James, Cole Younger and their Gang. This one focuses on the end of the Civil War and the first few years of the gang's activities,which lasted a whole decade in reality, from 1866-76, ending with the foiled Northfield, Minnesota, bank robbery on September 7, 1876. Jesse & Frank escaped while the others were captured or died. While Frank tried to settle down to a normal life in Virginia Jesse restarted the gang in 1879, but was shot by Robert Ford, one of his trusted gang members on April 3, 1882.

"American Outlaws" is highlighted by a great cast with palpable chemistry, including Colin Farrell as Jesse, Scott Caan (aka 'Danno') as Cole, the beautiful Ali Larter as Zee, Jesse's girlfriend/wife, and Timothy Dalton as the lead Pinkerton. Gabriel Macht, Will McCormack, Nathaniel Arcand and Gregory Smith are also on hand as notable members of the gang. The film plays it fairly serious accented by a fun, joie de vivre spirit, sorta like Indiana Jones in the wild West. You can tell the cast had a blast during filming. This is the exact opposite of the grim "The Long Riders" from 1980, which is arguably the best and most accurate film about the James-Younger Gang.

As far as historical accuracy goes with "American Outlaws," well, there was a group of outlaws in Missouri called the James-Younger Gang and they did rob banks, trains, and stagecoaches in Missouri, Kentucky, Iowa, Texas, Arkansas, Kansas, West Virginia and Minnesota (whereas Jesse's later group continued the gangs' criminal legacy in Alabama, Missouri, Louisiana and Mississippi), other than this the historicity is pretty butchered for the sake of rousing Western entertainment. See "The Long Riders" for a more austere and accurate version of the tale.

BOTTOM LINE: Even though "American Outlaws" loses points for inaccuracies and implausibilities, it scores high in overall entertainment value. It's a turn-off-your-brain-and-have-a-blast kind of Western. The movie performed poorly at the box office in 2001 and Roger Ebert gave it a scathing review. Ebert compared it to 1972's "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid," which he praised. This was strange because that film wasn't exactly realistic either; in fact, it's a veritable parody or black comedy. These movies shouldn't be compared in the first place since "American Outlaws" details the gang's first year in action and "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid" the gang's final bank robbery, a whole decade later. Furthermore, the two films are expressly opposite in tone: "American Outlaws" makes the wild West larger-than-life and ALMOST fun while the other film de-glamorizes it, making it profane, ugly and idiotic. In any event, "American Outlaws" is seriously rollicking Western lore worthy of one's video library.

The film was shot in Central-East Texas (great locations, by the way) and runs a short-but-sweet 94 minutes.

GRADE: B

The legend of Jesse James is one of those stories that people just never seem to get tired of. Every few years, we see a new cinematic version of the life of James, a former Confederate raider who became a folk hero after he turned to banditry following the war. The latest iteration of the story is "American Outlaws", a red-blooded B-style shoot-'em-up that offers little in the way of historical accuracy and even less in the way of storytelling elegance, but does serve up plenty of action and lots of fun.

Jesse (hot Irish newcomer Colin Farrell) makes a name for himself on the battlefields of the Civil War as an unpredictable live wire willing to do anything to get the Yankees. After the war, he and his levelheaded sure-shot brother Frank (Gabriel Macht) return to their home in Liberty, Missouri, only to find the railroad coming through town. The big rail money, backed up by hard-skulled detective Allen Pinkerton (a glowering Timothy Dalton), wants to buy the James farm, but the boys aren't selling. They didn't shed their blood on the battlefields just to give their home over to a railroad. Soon, however, it's back to war when a bomb destroys their farmhouse and the only way to get revenge is to strap on your guns and ride. As they rob railroad payrolls and bedevil the authorities, Jesse, Frank, and their gang get something besides revenge: they become authentic American legends.

It's a story every schoolboy knows. Hell, Bobby Brady was a Jesse James aficionado. Still, it's been a while since we've had a telling of the story, and this one does a fairly good job of keeping us entertained. Les Mayfield is not the obvious choice to direct a western (his most notable previous film was "Encino Man" with Pauly Shore), but he actually does a decent job. He handles the action sequences with flair, particularly a crackerjack bank shootout and Jesse's escape from the rail baron's train. The film's period accoutrements are all present and accounted for, the costumes and guns appropriately impressive, the cinematography by Russell Boyd all vibrant browns and golds.

There are also some nice performances from the mostly young cast. Colin Farrell makes Jesse a likable, oddly sweet kid whose charm is just as deadly as his gun. Scott Caan matches him as the hotheaded Cole Younger (more on him later), and Gabriel Macht is a sensible and solid Frank, his performance the best thing in the film. Ali Larter is nice eye candy as Jesse's lady love, but the story really gives her nothing to do, and while Dalton growls impressively behind a grungy-looking beard, he doesn't really get the chance to do anything evil.

This is where "American Outlaws" starts shooting itself in the foot. There is no real sense of a concrete enemy for the boys to battle, a true and implacable adversary. Harris Yulin blusters and barks as the railroad baron, but he never truly emerges as a figure of loathing. As a result, the film's finale is unfocused and confusing. Pinkerton's final action in particular makes no sense to me at all. Is he just giving a cocky young kid the benefit of the doubt? Is he doing it because Jesse's wife is hot? I don't get it.

"American Outlaws" is a frustrating film in some ways because everything you like is balanced by something that rubs you the wrong way. A great Civil War battle opening is marred by the sparseness of the Union ranks (Mayfield should have called for more extras that day). An appropriately Coplandesque score by Trevor Rabin is almost wholly sabotaged by the inclusion of a Moby song (MOBY!) at both the beginning and the end of the film. It almost makes you want to grab a six-gun yourself and blaze away at the troublemakers, leaving behind only those who are contributing admirably to the enterprise.

Still, I've come to expect the good with the bad this summer, and "American Outlaws" joins "Tomb Raider" and "The Mummy Returns" as a piece of escapism that is better than the critics' comments indicate, but not as good as it probably should be. Still, with these flouncy dull MTV teen comedies STILL dominating the marketplace, it's nice to see someone delivering a good old fashioned genre piece. In these parlous cinematic times, even a problematic western is better than no western at all.

I close with a bit of real history: after they stopped riding with the James boys, Cole Younger and his outlaws kept going, and one time even attempted to rob a farmhouse in their area. The woman of the house got the drop on them, though; she slammed a window on a gang member's hand, costing him two of his fingers. She survived to live a healthy long life, and have children and grandchildren of her own. One of those grandchildren was my grandmother. Someone should put THAT in a movie. It would make me happy.

I like Western movies. I wished Hollywood made more Western movies. So, when Hollywood does decide to quell the hunger of a Western flick fan by making one...how can one resist?

I have to say I enjoyed "American Outlaws". It isn't hard-core Western but a fun, likeable summer movie. I liked the cast of this film. Colin Farrell was fun to watch as Jesse James but I absolutely loved Gabriel Macht as his older brother Frank. Bill McCormack was funny as Bob Younger and even Scott Caan, whom you aren't sure if you should like or not gave a good performance as Cole Younger.

I liked the twist this movie offers painting the James/Younger gang as the good guys and the Pinkerton's as the bad guys. It was different and that's what made it fun.

Sure this film isn't historically accurate but who cares?? Some have complained that the shooting scenes weren't realistic enough...who cares?? Do we really need so much violence to feel satisfied? Do we need to see how a bullet ravages the human body to feel that a Western is worth while? The point is made well enough without all the blood and gore. Don't let these pointless anecdotes deter you from watching this movie. You might be surprised! I certainly was.

"American Outlaws" is a fun, family movie. We should thank Warner Bros. for making a film/Western that our kids can watch without all the other junk (bad language, nudity, sexual innuendos etc.) that inundates most movies today! If you like Westerns and even if you don't, check this one out!

There is just something about seeing a western that has real characters in it. What is it about outlaws that peaks our interest? What was it about Jesse James that made people love him so much? Was he really as benevolent as he was made to be in this film? Was he really as crazy and theological as he was in the Rob Lowe/Bill Paxton film Frank and Jesse? I'm not really sure, I would probably have to guess he was somewhere in between. In American Outlaws Jesse is played rather blandly by Colin Ferrel. I can honestly say that I wasn't overly interested in Jesse James in this film the way I was in Frank and Jesse. Rob Lowe had a much more complete interpretation of outlaw Jesse James. But what may be lacking in the leads is more than made up for in some of the supporting characters, and for that I would say that American Outlaws is almost worth seeing. Not quite, but if you have nothing better to do with $10.00, go see this film.

Gabriel Macht plays Jesse's older brother Frank and Timothy Dalton, of James Bond fame plays Alan Pinkerton, the man responsible for hunting down the James gang. Macht plays Frank James as the older and much wiser brother. He calmly solves disputes, writes and plans many of the heists and robberies and helps Jesse court the love of his life. Yet he is not there to take the spotlight away from his brother or from Cole Younger. Frank is basically a peacemaker. I enjoyed Macht's performance and when he was on screen the picture was a lot more interesting. He adds some needed credibility to a somewhat lame film. When you have great actresses like Kathy Bates looking disasterous in their small roles, you know you are in trouble. I don't know if you can attribute all of this to the director, Les Mayfield, but it has to start somewhere. The actors weren't really allowed to shine and maybe a few more takes should have been filmed before deciding on which one to use.

Two other actors stood out as well and one of them was Timothy Dalton. He seemed a little out of place in this film. He just looked as though he was one step ahead of everyone else and just seemed to know something that we didn't. He could make you think that just by a smirk, or a tone of voice or a tip of his black fedora. He is evil, conniving and yet he has some admiration for the James/Younger gang. He can empathize with their situation but his job is to hunt them down and kill them. I would like to see Dalton in more roles like this, he was fun to watch in this film. Also intriguing to watch is Will McCormack as Bob Younger. He is unfamiliar to me but anyone who watches The Sopranos religiously will recognize him from a few episodes. I thought he was believable in his smaller role as one of the Younger brothers. At first he comes off as being a little slow, but his character builds towards the end and eventually he turns out to be one of the stronger characters.

It's a shame that American Outlaws couldn't build a better script around these three characters because they seemed better than the script they were given.

American Outlaws isn't a bad film, it's not really a great one either but it is worth a look. If anything, it will make you want to go home and pop in your copy of Tombstone and remember what it is like to have compelling Western characters.

6 out of 10--could be better, could be worse.

Many of today's younger viewers probably won't know too much about the James Boys, and The Youngers. So they can enjoy this for what it is, "a funny, bullet dodging romp, through the wild west. ". However the older generation should probably steer clear of this one. The Goodies are Baddies, and the Baddies are Goodies. Some of the one liners could have been written by the writers of Joey or Friends, with additional material by Mel Brooks, who might have called it "Men in Strides" I notice that the stunt men and special effects (which seem mandatory in today's films,) got all the awards. Figures about right. Jesse's escape from the train is strictly Van Damme. So, if you've never heard of Bob Ford, watch this, you'll probably enjoy it. However, if you are old enough to remember Bob, and Tyrone Power, I have a feeling that you won't.