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American Outlaws

American Outlaws

List Price: $14.97
Your Price: $11.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: yeehaww
Review: friends rob banks and are wanted outlaws, Timothy Dalton wants them dead and kills their families, including Kathy Bates. great action and shootouts, the end where Farrell swings on the side of the train and shoots threw the windows is the best action scene. othewise its a bore for the most part. Ali Larter has never been more sexier, when shes in the water with Farrell and then the 2 are surrounded by horses on shore.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Freaking Amazing
Review: This movie kicks major butt. I loved Colin's performance as well as Greg's! Will added a bit of comic releif, which was a good thing. I loved the fact that Jesse James was portrayed as a hero. I personally believe this film did Jesse a great justice. It's better then any other Jesse James film I have seen to date. I was a little upset that they left out Archie James. The fact that they made the character of Jim a combination of Jim and John Younger kinda put me off a bit but I love watching Greg as Jim Younger. I just hate that in the period films I've seen him in he always dies...but hopefully one day soon I'll see him as the hero...

Love
Melissa Boggs, co-founder, CEO and president of Morbid 13 Films

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: good
Review: this movie was better than i expected it to be. people said that it was bad and apparently the general public didn't repsond to it quite well. i thought that it deserved more intake at the box office. this was a nice modern western (if that makes any sense) and practically all the actors give a superb performance. as always, colin farrell hid his irish accent very well and he never slipped.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best in the West
Review: I LOVED this movie.It is action-packed but also has comedy, romance and non-stop entertainment.It not only has great looking men,especially Gabriel Macht, but a real feel for the old west.I can't get enough of it.I hope they will offer an "American Outlaws 2".ENJOY,it is worth the watch...Teri

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Charming, fun, and not even remotely historical
Review: I must immediately say that this film is a whole lot of fun. The actors are young, cute, talented, and obviously having a great time. Colin Farrell and Gabriel Macht have clearly captured the spirit of the James brothers; Scott Caan has his father's looks, charm and very good handle on the boldness and ruthlessness of Cole Younger; Will McCormack is a scene-stealing comic, and Ali Larter is--well, she's very pretty. The show is helped out immeasurably by veterans Timothy Dalton and Kathy Bates. (Bates would have been an even more natural choice for the James boys' mother if the part had been written closer to history, which it wasn't.) There are some wonderful action/adventure Indiana Jones-y stunts and the pace of the film is brisk. It's a Saturday afternoon kind of movie--fun, good-looking,and not mentally taxing.

My problem was that I bought the film to give me some insight into the history of the James Gang, and if you are looking for reality, this isn't it. It's a combination of half-truth, made-up-out-of-whole-cloth falsehood, and so many anachronisms we lost count. Anachronisms can be charming--as "A Knight's Tale" illustrates so well-- and part of the movie's charm is the 21st century Saved-by-the-Bell language that these kids bring to their roles as famous desperadoes. If you know anything about the James Gang, the Civil War, or the history of western expansion, parts of this movie will drive you crazy. A partial list:

1. The opening scene takes place during the last days of the Civil War with Frank James taking out a Gatling Gun with his sharpshooter's Winchester rifle, a' la' Sergeant York. Gatling guns were not used in the Civil War (except as a test case), and Frank's Winchester is an 1880's invention.

2. Cole Younger was never about to be hanged by Federals and so the James boys didn't free him from the gallows, but it IS a great scene to watch.

3. Most of the climactic scenes involve Jesse's escape from captivity. Jesse James was never captured. He was shot in the back of the head at his home by a former gang member for reward money.

4. Mrs. James (her name was Zerelda Samuel) was not killed by the Pinkerton Raid. She lost an arm but lived well into old age. However, not mentioned by the movie was that her 8-year-old son Archie Samuel, the James boys' half-brother, was killed in the raid.

5. Jim Younger wasn't shot dead as a teenager after some bank job--he killed himself in his 50's after he was paroled from prison.

6. Pinkerton never saw the James Boys in person, but directed the hunt for them from Chicago.

7. In the film, Nathaniel Arcand brings ethnic diversity to the Gang as "Commanche Tom," but I can't find a record of anyone named Tom in the James Gang and no one who was obviously Native American. I think his role was just a token; if you have "cowboys" you have to have an "Indian" too.

8. Ali Larter was just precious, but her loose flowing Breck-girl hair and Gap-style gauzy clothing were anachronistic. And the idea the she led a raid to free (the never-imprisoned-in-the-first-place) Jesse, guns blazing, is totally out of character for her or most women of the age. The directors DID manage to present "ladies of the evening" as something less than Hollywood-beautiful, which is probably closer to the truth, however.

Enjoy this film. It is meant to be enjoyed. Just don't take any of it seriously.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: I Remembered "Bad Girls"; Just Guns and Explosions
Review: Jesse Woodson James, one of the titular "outlaws," is taken up again as the hero of another Western movie, with Colin Farrell. (If you are interested in other Jesse James film, see "The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid.) After the Civil War, Jesse, his brother Frank (Gabriel Macht) and Cole Younger (Scott Caan) formed a group to attack the railroad company which, according to the film, relentlessly buys up the land of the farmers (two dollars for one acre). Some say Jesse and Cole are American heroes.

The film is right in giving us simple settting, ignoring some historical truths; but the film also ignores our reaction to countless actions that lead us nowhere in particular, like the script of 1994 Drew Barrymore film "Bad Girls." (Well, the poster was good.) The railroad company led by Harris Yulin and Terry O'Quinn is jsut a bunch of risible, one-dimentional, old-fashioned villains who are there to be despised. Even Timothy Dalton who plays Allan Pinkerton looks theatrical, not because of his acting, but because of the character's illogical response. You expect from Pinkerton some smart scheme to catch the group. No. His 'plan' is little better than the one found in hackneyed TV episode of some detective drama.

But what is most disappointing is the acting of the cast. Collin Farrell doesn't seem to be interested in the role, nor other actors except very few (I mean hot shot Gregory Smith and humorous Will McCormack). You cannot distinguish one from another, and if one of them is gunned down, it is shown in a most balnd way so that we don't care. Probably that has something to do with the hot climate of Texas where the film was shot. But in "Tigerland" in which humid air is easily felt, Colin Farrell was fantastic. Here he is not.

Two actresses appear: Ali Larter as Jesse's love Zee Mimms (who really married Jesse), and Kathy Bates as Jesse's mother (who really didn't meet the same fate as the film shows). And I don't know why they should be here, giving awful dialogues, doing just unmemorable roles. And you know it's Kathy Bates; it is amazing that she is unmemorable and gives awful dialogues.

What you see in this movie is just another fast-paced, action-packed Hollywood movie about guns and explosions. The film never stops, thanks to the director Les Mayfield ("Flubber" and "Blue Streak"), and like these films he doesn't show any originality. Not a good entertainment, this film doesn't serve as a text for learning history either.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Western for the MTV generation
Review: This is not a movie I would recommend to traditionalists among the Western movie audience.People whose formative movie going years were spent watching Westerns starring the likes of Wayne,Scott,Cooper and Eastwood-actors with weathered faces and an air of hard won experience that suggested a life lived hard and well-will find the parade of twenty something pretty boys and girls ,with sun bed tans and expensive LA dentistry ,a little hard to swallow.By the same token there is no pretence of authenticity in either the historical facts or the actual look of the movie which is bright ,clean and just too "modern "for an authentic Western
It is in short a Western aimed at the MTV audience which demands action ,rapid cross cutting and a certain flippancy in the dialogue and plot development.
It purports to tell the story of the James-Younger gang whose career we trace from the closing days of the Civil War ,through their return home to discover the railroad is seeking to take over their farms ,to their subsequent career as train and bank robbers as they wage war agianst the railroad interests and the Pinkerton men sent to track them down.It stops short of the final chapter in the life of its hero Jesse James-maybe the audience cant handle tragedy.
Take it for what it is -an action movie for the teen audience,one which it just so happens is a Western ,and you may well enjoy it .Ask for something a little more -like logical plot developments,authenticity and an air of versimilitude,and you will not be satisfied
The cast are all perfectly competent actors but for the most part simply do not LOOK right for their roles .They never suggest the kind of people they are playing -young people who worked hard on the land,saw violent and bloody action in a vicious war and then tirned killers.It is a sanitised portarit of the decade and its main participants and best enjoyed with one's critical faculties anaesthetised.
Lots of lively action and a brisk running time help while veteran players Kathy Bates -as Mrs James ,and Timothy Dalton as a symapthetic Pinkerton -steal acting honours .
I would gladly see more of the youthful leads but preferably not in a Western -they simply lack the faces and demeanour to do well in this specialised genre

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A great, great buy
Review: One of my favorites, this movie will keep your interest throughout. Don't hesitate on this one... if you're looking for a good modern made western, this is the one.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good outlaw movie
Review: "American Outlaws" has many entertaining scenes. Its action scenes are very unique, especially the bank robberies and their plannings. Colin Ferrill gave Jesse James his intensity that he deserves. My only complaint about this movie is that the events are not very accurate to that of the real-life events. Overall, the movie in whole...4 stars, Gregory Smith's acting...5 stars

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Best New Old West Movie
Review: this was a great movie. it has the best action sequences every and it leaves you feeling that tingly ambitious, get-out-and-kick...feeling that a good action movie does. a top-notch old west movie. i highly reccomend it, it is my favorite.


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