|
Grimness is de rigueur in '70s revisionist Westerns, Philip Kaufman nevertheless insists on a joshing tempo and delivers a Preston Sturgian portrait of myth. The tone is plaintive and mocking, established early on by leapfrogging from a Peckinpah ambush to a vision shot through crossed eyes. Jesse James (Robert Duvall) is introduced in the outhouse, Cole Younger (Cliff Robertson) meanwhile savors his pipe and his legend, wowing the crowd with the many bullet holes in his leather vest. The outlaws are populist heroes hoping for amnesty from the Missouri Legislature, it is rescinded thanks to "bribin' railroad dicks" forever late on a locomotive. A divided system contemplating its centennial—James envisions the robbery of a Minnesota bank as war on a "Yankee Gomorrah," Younger sees it as a withdraw for a retirement. "This world ain't fair to thinkers." Nothing beats the speed and vividness of the style, a dilation from Penn (The Left-Handed Gun, Bonnie and Clyde) that points ahead to the sagebrush absurdism of The Missouri Breaks. A land of "wonderments," the steam-powered calliope that foils a caper and the mule-tail mustache that conceals a mauled jaw, Duvall's bravura rendition of psycho-charlatan zeal and the sardonic sketch of vigilantes storming a brothel and leaving its customer dangling from trees with pants around their ankles. Baseball is the latest sensation, Younger begs to differ and applies pistol to scorecard: "Our national sport, gentlemen, is shooting, and always will be." The protagonist is caught in a hail of gunfire but survives into the new century, a rascal who, like Kaufman's astronauts later on, understands the nation's need to believe in heroes. With Luke Askew, R.G. Armstrong, Matt Clark, John Pearce, Wayne Sutherlin, Dana Elcar, Donald Moffat, Elisha Cook Jr., Robert H. Harris, and Royal Dano.
--- Fernando F. Croce |