Director: Lawrence Kasdan
Starring: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover
IMDB: 7.2
RT: 76
Box Office: $32.1 Million (Domestic)
Summary-
A misfit bunch of friends come together to right the injustices in the town of Silverado.
Review (Spoilers!)-
Having watched quite a few Westerns by now I think I have a firm grasp on most of the genre conventions. I think that's partially why I have gravitated towards the Spaghetti Western's recently because I wanted to explore a different aspect of the genre. That being said every once in a while it's nice to enjoy an old school Hollywood Western like Silverado.
The film opens with Emmett (Scott Glenn) getting attacked in a small shack that he is sleeping in. He fights off the bag guys, takes their horses and rides off. On the way he meets Paden (Kevin Kline) who has been left for dead in the desert. He takes him to the nearest town where Paden finds and kills one of the men who took his things. Paden also runs into his old friend Cobb (Brian Dennehy) who offers him a job but he turns it down. Emmett sets off for Silverado to meet his sister and Paden decides to tag along. On their way they stop in a town where Emmett's brother Jake (Kevin Costner) is set to be hanged by Sheriff Langston (John Cleese). They also meet Mal (Danny Glover) who gets kicked out of town for causing trouble because he is black. Emmet ends up breaking his brother out and they continue on their way to Silverado with the help of Mal. The first act does a perfectly adequate job of setting up all the main plot points and bringing the characters together although the characters are a bit thin.
When they get to Silverado Emmett and Jake meet up with their sister and her family, Mal heads to find his families farm nearby and Paden discovers that his friend Cobb is the Sheriff of the town and owner of the local Saloon. Everything seems fine until each character is presented with a problem. The son of a man Emmett killed is a powerful landowner in the town and wants him and his family dead. Mal discovers that his mother has died and that his father has been run off their land by the powerful landowner. Paden on the other hand gets himself a job working at the Saloon for his friend Cobb but he soon realizes that Cobb is one of the bad guys. Things slowly escalate in the second act until Emmett's sisters house is burned, her husband shot and her son is kidnapped. This leads to a very action packed third act that features one big gun battle and a couple of duels. Each character gets to kill off an individual nemesis and all of the plot lines are tied up neatly.
The plot is fairly by the numbers but effective, the characters while shallow are still entertaining and the camera work is solid. All of these factors come together to make an above average Hollywood Western. It is also pretty fun to watch so many big name actors shooting at each other. We get some fun appearances by Jeff Fahey, Jeff Goldblum and John Cleese to go along with the already big named cast. It also has a pretty enjoyable score that really adds some excitement to the action sequences.
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| The Crew |
Final Thoughts-
I had a really good time with this film! Sure it has a few too many story lines going on at once and the characters are rather shallow but its a strong enough film to overcome that. This is a modern Western that doesn't try so hard to break the genre conventions but instead embraces them and makes them enjoyable again. Sure it isn't one of the best Westerns of all time but it is probably a good starting point for people new to the genre.
MY RATING-
3.5 out of 5
- Chris "Da Franchize" Hart
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