Silverado

If you are looking for a very entertaining western, it's hard to top this one. It's fairly long at 134 minutes, but the deep cast and always-interesting story make the time fly by.

The first half of the film is about as good as it gets but two climactic scenes at the end get a little too carried away with the "Rambo" mentality of good guys not getting shot when they should have, etc. But, overall, it's so good it is still very highly-recommended. Among the "lists" you see on this website's message boards and elsewhere, you rarely see this movie mentioned among top westerns and that is a huge oversight.

There are four main "good guys" that are played by well-known actors: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner and Danny Glover. I especially liked Kline as "Paden" with his gentlemanly manner about him and Glenn's voice always makes him interesting. Costner is so young looking he almost looks like a teenager.

Brian Dennehy, as the villainous "Sheriff Cobb," is verbally restrained in here, which was nice to hear, for a change but he's still intense and fascinating. (This movie marked the 10,000th time Hollywood made a lawman the villain since the 1960s).

The story is fun, a straight cowboy movie with no romances or gratuitous sex scenes thrown in and has the usual beautiful western scenery and photography. The only problem was the sound. The soundtrack is so loud so have to crank up your center speaker to hear the dialog over the music.

I love this movie, so much that I finally got tired of renting it and bought a copy. I tell anyone who asks that it's "...the western for 12-year-old boys of all ages." I'd guess that women would enjoy it also, if for no other reason than the superb male cast. I can't think of a film which has a cast with greater depth. I love the humor woven through the episodes of action and buddyhood, and nearly fell out of my seat laughing when John Cleese first appeared on screen. His first line is an all-time great, right up there with Tommy Lee Jones' "My my, what a mess" in The Fugitive (I won't quote it, in case you haven't seen the film). If you want to be thoroughly entertained for a couple of hours, and don't require powerful social import in your viewing choices, I'd recommend Silverado strongly. Actually, the relationship of Danny Glover to the main protagonists IS socially important, so enjoy that too.

Silverado is Lawrence Kasdan's western, westerns were scarce in the 80's, but went on to be a big hit at the box office. Kasdan, at this point was best known for screenwriting on blockbusters like The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi. On this film, Kasdan pays his homage to the western genre, by resurrecting it from the dead(besides the occasional Clint Eastwood western) in a more modern and refreshing way with a great ensemble cast of Scott Glenn, Kevin Kline, Brian Dennehy, Danny Glover and a young Kevin Costner in an early role. The story and direction is tight, the film looks great and is driven by a lot of action and solid performances. Although this is a movie that would be appropriate viewing for the whole family, Silverado is far from stupid and holds its own pretty easily against other classics of the genre. Overall, I think Silverado is a great movie and was done well.

Silverado is damn good fun. Being a small fan of the Western genre, I felt this was the most refreshing one I've seen in a while. The genre had pretty much died, but came back in Silverado, and it felt so fresh.

The plot is simple and cliche, I think it's paying homage to the classics. It sticks within the Western boundary and does its thing.

The cast is pretty good, and well known, but in 1985, these actors were just Hollywood virgins. I was surprised by John Cleese, he stuck out like a sore thumb, but I enjoyed his performance. You have Costner hamming it up, and Jeff Goldblum was cool. Scott Glenn was probably the best. Hell, Glover was pretty good, too.

The direction is wonderful as is the editing, the film moves along at a decent pace. I wish Lawrence was a more prominent director, he deserves more success.

The film score is very nice, fits the film perfectly.

Overall, one of the best Westerns in the last 25 years.

An all-star cast makes SILVERADO one of the most fun movies I've ever see. Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, Patricia Arquette, Brian Dennehy, Jeff Fahey, Jeff Goldblum, John Cleese, and many more populate this well-paced wild west adventure about friendship, loyalty, and justice. With the exception of Indians, this film features just about every western element in existence. Director Lawrence Kasdan gets the most out of everything: the wide open spaces, the sleepy little western towns, and Bruce Broughton's rousing western-flavored score. It sometimes seems like the movie tried to pack too much in, but it's handled quite well by someone who obviously knows how to make an entertaining western. The climax is great, with at least three different showdowns going on at once. It's a shame the rumored (and actually scripted five years later) sequel was never made, and it probably never will be, because I wouldn't mind seeing what these characters are up to years after this fun-filled adventure.