No Strings Attached

Written at the time of the film's release...

"Turning Natalie Portman Into a Girl"
or
"That 'Flippy' Thing You Did?  Good Call."

"SUCH a chick-flick!" said one of the young women sitting in front of me at the conclusion of No Strings Attached, the new rom-com with Natalie Portman (who exec-produced, as if you didn't have ENOUGH reasons to hate her) and Ashton Kutcher.  This one might be the most negligible film in the 12 month span which will see her in five new movies (based on previews, I think Thor might actually be the weakest link), having a kid, getting married, and probably winning an Oscar (Geez, Nat,' over-achieving much?).

And, yeah, total chick-flick, but one with a tiny spin to it, although it still falls into the "happily-ever-after" formula they've followed since the days when we innocently worried that Doris Day might lose her chastity to Rock Hudson. No such worries here. There's a lot of hay-rolling in this one, body-double or no, although we see more of Kutcher's tush than hers (for a change). Virtue is not the issue here, but "true love,"* now permanently split, I guess, from sex (not that they really got along).

But, and this is the "neat twist," it is Portman's Emma Kurtzman, who has commitment issues, not, as is typical, the male of the species. "I'm not really an affectionate person," she blandly tells her camp-buddy Adam (they keep "meeting-cute" throughout their lives, which in movie terms means they're destined to be together (Hell, they're in a romantic comedy—of course, they're destined to be together!). But, when both are "available," they have a brief encounter (clocked at 45 seconds), that puts Emma in mind that, rather than suffering through that whole "relationship thing" that they become "friends with benefits," casual sex partners available at the drop of a text message.

Then, in a Hawksian role-reversal, which, as in His Girl Friday, makes the original premise snap into focus a little better, it is Kutcher's TV-assistant director who wants something more, as in commitment, from which Portman's Emma wrinkles her nose, rolls her eyes and turns on her heel. It gets complicated. It gets messy. It gets resolved.

This sounds like a dreadful premise, but for all the "R"-rated language and suggestiveness (though never veering into "bro-mance" crudeness), and the seemingly-required "safe" arc of the storyline,** it is a clever and funny movie in the particulars, thanks in no small part to Elizabeth Meriwether's clever screenplay, a less-leaden-than-usual direction by Ivan Reitman, and a splendid ensemble above and below the title. Incidents and details seem fresh and buoy you up, disguising the fact that there may be some clockwork mechanism behind the face, and the cast makes the most of these moments, making it all play fast and a little loose (with the exception of Kevin Kline, who is just a little practiced and arch as Kutcher's never-grown-up father, but that could be explained away as he's an actor). Portman manages to make her "stick-in-the mud" Emma stiff and likeable simultaneously, and is only too happy to sacrifice her dignity in scenes (she has a great drunken wobble-walk in high-heels that's priceless), and Kutcher—who gets a lot of stick for just being Ashton Kutcher—doesn't take himself so seriously that he avoids turning winsomeness into weakness. Both's comic timing makes for a good chemistry, despite the obstacles their characters regularly throw between each other.  In the end, it is two people's trip to normalcy in a chaotic world that seems to want to either crush them or ignore them, and only by narrowing their focus to each other can they achieve the specialness they think they deserve.

* ...and, coincidentally, Cary Elwes, Westley from The Princess Bride, is in this, although discretely disguised behind a nerdlinger beard, so he doesn't pose a realistic threat to Kutcher.

** One of these days I have to finish that post on Judd Apatow.

The Conspirator

Written at the time of the film's release...

"What About the Woman?"
or
"Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges"

Robert Redford's previous film—Lions for Lambs—was a self-indulgent tract on the tearing down of constitutional law in times of crisis—the short-cuts in due process and individual freedoms that occur when authorities are more concerned with short term results, rather than demonstrating the strengths that underpin the foundations of the Nation under attack. War is a very dangerous time; one must guard against attacks from without and within.

He needn't have bothered. History was already there with the same lessons, but distanced by time to demonstrate, rather than lecture and ostracize.

I was always fascinated by the Lincoln assassination and its aftermath.  As a grade-school student, I'd read books about those hysterical days following the surrender at Appomattox ending the Civil War, culminating in John Wilkes Booth's assassination of Lincoln (who, in trying to preserve the Union, had already done enough damage suspending habeas corpus during the course of the War), the man-hunt for the conspirators (whose intentions were to kidnap the President in exchange for Rebel prisoners) when Booth was killed, trapped in a burning barn, thus robbing the Nation of a cathartic trial (which probably would have been a kangaroo court anyway, to prevent the vain-glorious actor from speaking and fomenting discord in the wake of an uneasy truce). Short-cuts were made...civil trials disbanded in favor of more stringent military tribunals (sound familiar?)...and the conspirators deprived of any rights of the accused.*

Justice was thrown out the barred windows in the sake of revenge.

The Conspirator focuses
on only one of the accused, Mary Surratt (played in the film by Robin Wright Penn), mother of conspirator John Surratt (who had fled to Virginia) and owner of the boarding house where much Virginia venom was pit during the war, along with some of the conspirators' planning sessions. Surratt was widowed, Catholic, a woman, Southern and sympathetic to its cause, all strikes against her. But that she was the mother of John was what damned her—his association with the plotters made the location of their meetings, planned or otherwise, a foregone conclusion, and her arrest and trial was national news—maybe the government could coerce the son to surrender to save the mother.

That might have worked if the government wasn't operating in the same manner the Rebels feared it would. The new President Johnson, under advisement from Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (played by Kevin Kline, and more than making up for his performance in No Strings Attached) insured that the South would pay for Lincoln's death, just part of his crack-down on the South after the war. No insurrection, no slight would be tolerated, and justice would move fast and frequently recklessly.

Redford's film of the proceedings is austere, but leaves no parallel with modern times (post 9/11) unparalleled. The facts are there, supported by generous newspaper headlines from the period bridging sequences, focusing on Surratt's defense by legal aide to Senator Reverdy Johnson (Tom Wilkinson), Frederik Aiken (James McAvoy, whose American accent is superb). The film is front-loaded with young stars (Evan Rachel Wood, Alexis Bledel, Justin Long) as acquaintances of Aiken's, all urging him to be cautious in his precipitously uphill battle to have Surratt acquitted, lest he fall under suspicion of the government as well. But, there are also good turns by Colm Meaney, Danny Huston, and Stephen Root, (who is fast becoming one of my favorite character actors).

There is little humor in the film, save bitter irony, but given the circumstances of the case, that is hardly unexpected. There are some subtle touches as well.  Like sunshine. Watch how Redford—always the Nature-boy—uses the sun throughout the movie (and the lack of sun). So many darkened, shuttered rooms reflecting that time of skulkers and hidden agendas. One doesn't have to make to big a leap remembering that the light of day is a natural disinfectant, especially in scurrilous times.

This is the first film of The American Film Company, founded in 2008 by the Ricketts family, and even though it might seem tempting for the owners of the Chicago Cubs to re-write history, the purpose of the film-house is to present accurate portrayals of American History without the issuance of dramatic license.  It's a noble mission, but given that manifesto it guarantees that most of their films will not have a happy ending—I can't even think of a treaty that this Nation has agreed to and honored. One hopes that it can stay in business long enough to produce some great, accurate films about the hidden corners of the past.

The documentation of the hanging. 
Mary Surratt is on the left.

* Redford makes a cogent observation by also placing all the Ford Theater actors in custody, as well—they were, after all, associates of Booth—along with with the suspected assassins.

A Prairie Home Companion

Written at the time of the film's release...

 

  Spiel mir das Lied vom Tod*

or

"What'd He Wanna Do That For?"

"A Prairie Home Companion" is one of the best shows on the radio (the best being "This American Life," but we'll save that for later...or better yet, check it out for yourself on the link). Over the course of its 30 year run, this less-than-"Grand Ol' Opry"-wanna-be has presented home-spun music of all genres--from Gospel to Grand Opera (and has seemingly unearthed every folk-artist extant in the country) and combined spiritual optimism (albeit Lutheran, which takes the joy out of it) with a cynical farm-land realism, all reflecting the philosophy and upbringing of its host Garrison Keillor, whose low story-telling voice is as lulling as cattle moaning in the pasture at night. Keillor writes it all, performs in most of it and serves as ringmaster, finally capping it off with his stool-talk reverie, The News from Lake Wobegon, land of low expectations ("Where all the women are strong, all the men, good-looking and all the children are above-average"). Old time radio techniques and phony commercials--for "Powder-Milk Biscuits" ("Heavens, they're tasty and expeditious!") or for "The Ketchup Advisory Board" wind their way through everything, with just enough toothsome satire to leaven the bitter with the sweet. It's Community-Theater of the Mind, a staple of Public Radio, and manages to embrace and cherish both red and blue states in it's musty woolen blanket of nostalgia. 

In the long string of Saturdays that I've listened I've heard moments of great beauty that I'll never forget,** while, on the other hand, I've wondered more than once why Keillor needs to sing so damned much. It's been a comforting friend on lonely cross-country drives, and it's been known to make a car load of rowdies quiet in contemplation. 

But anyone going into Robert Altman's A Prarie Home Companion or "PHC" is due for a bit of a shock. Written by Keillor (from a story by him and Ken LeZebnik), it incorporates familiar bits and pieces from the broadcasts throughout. Characters come to life in the form of show-stalwarts cowboys Dusty and Lefty (played in the film by Woody Harrelson and John C. Reilly) and private eye Guy Noir (played by Kevin Kline as not hard-boiled, so much as hard-up), as well as the subjects of one of Keillor's Wobegon yarns-the Johnson Sisters (Lily Tomlin and Meryl Streep). There's an old country music type named Chuck Akers (played by L. Q. Jones), who stands in for the PHC perennial guest, Chet Atkins. Why, I even remember the episode the Penguin joke came from. But the radio show itself is used as backdrop to the intertwining stories of the participants on the last night of the show, which overwhelms the conceit of using the show in the first place. 

And then...it's about death, primarily.

Which must make every blue-haired old lady in the audience go, "What'd they do that for? It's supposed to be 'A Prairie Home Companion!!"

A little back-story: Keillor had written a screenplay for Altman called "Lake Wobegon Days," about a local boy coming home to bury his father (it sounds alarmingly like Elizabethtown!)

Altman rejected it, saying: 1) "The death of an old man is not a tragedy" and 2) "I want to make a movie of 'A Prairie Home Companion,' instead!" I can just see the sour-lemon look on Keillor's face when Altman said that! "What does he wanna make a movie of that for?" he no doubt grumbled. "I've been doing that for years! And it's RADIO!"

Yup. But it's also live, which means chaos, and Altman always loved chaos. And it has music, which to Altman means community, and PHC ends, as the show usually does, with a group-sing of an old gospel standard--kinda shaky and maybe a little off-key, but still, it's everyone putting aside their differences and pulling together to make something nice, a trope that goes back to the films of Howard Hawks. And it ends with a grace note—an impromptu final bow from the wings.*** Altman's been making that kind of film for years, and death has always been a player, in M*A*S*H (whose so-familiar theme song is entitled "Suicide is Painless"), McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Nashville, The Player, Short Cuts, and Gosford Park. And The Long Goodbye.

And the reaction is usually "What'd he do that for?"

Amidst the songs by long-time PHC participants, the bits and skits, the players**** hook up and separate and talk over each other in a life-like muddle, Keillor's self-initialed character is constantly correcting the details of the various versions of History that he's concocted, and Death (in the form of Virginia Madsen) wanders the theater. Madsen's a wonderful actress—she deserved her Oscar nomination for Sideways and to win it, as well—but she's not terribly convincing in the part. Not entirely her fault. It's written as clueless and all-knowing, deeply philosophical and naive--Streep would have had difficulty with it. Plus, it's a little unclear just how she operates. Some people who see her, die. Some don't. Some folks who are unaware of her die. It's inconsistent. You'd want Death to have some kind of definite procedure, but I guess that's asking too much of a Grim Reaper. Death doesn't have rules.

But it's significant that before the final song, Death makes one final appearance and she heads our way until she obscures the camera in white.

A Prairie Home Companion was Robert Altman's last film. He died at age 81 on November 20th, 2006.

And as he said, "The death of an old man is no tragedy." Especially one who could still challenge an audience right up to the end.

"Live Every Show Like It's Your Last." The last bow's yours, Bob.

* The German Title of "Once Upon a Time in the West," translated, means "Play me a Song of Death"

** a college chorus group solemnly singing John Lennon's "Julia" will haunt me for the rest of my life, and even a sing-along with a crowd in Buffalo last week, made me dab my eyes and smile at the cleverness with which it was done (It's "Angels Watching Over Me" in Segment 2 of the link)

*** Courtesy of the always-wonderful John C. Reilly. But before that, one of the joys of the film is an impromptu bit by Meryl Streep, where she runs from the stage, grabs Keillor, who's already shambled off, drags him, surprised, back for a short, sweet dance--then turns around and leaves him, his arms holding her memory, as he watches--not sure what to do next. Then he turns and shuffles off-stage again. It feels spontaneous, and it feels perfect for both characters...and for Keillor in real life. 

**** How's Lindsey Lohan, you gossip-mongers ask? Good, actually! How're you?

Chaplin

Chaplin (Richard Attenborough, 1983) Elephantine, lugubrious bio-pic of the man underneath "The Little Tramp," Charles Spencer Chaplin. If more bio-pics were this ill-serving, it would be good reason to avoid the limelight altogether. Years after sweeping the Oscar-race with his ever-so-respectful biography of Gandhi* (starring Ben Kingsley), director Attenborough took on his famous countryman's auto-biography and varnished it with the same extra coats of shellac (with broad strokes) that made a still-life out of his film of A Chorus Line.

Charles Chaplin is a more-than-worthy subject for a sweeping biography that covers a huge amount of history in both the times of the U.S. and England, but also of the film industry. Chaplin was one of the rare few film-makers to make it out of the silent era alive and functioning, amassing a great fortune, becoming beloved world-wide—his Tramp character was recognized world-wide, with even more reach than Mickey Mouse—and treading the then-virgin territory of film star-dom with all its glamor, responsibilities...and pit-falls. Only thing, part of the problem was too many virgins. A clown-comedian who made his living, first by exposing the pomposity of authority, and then—as the Tramp—actively fighting it, he ran afoul of the authorities who didn't take too kindly to his irreverent side, little noting that the Tramp's triumphs were a balm for a restless public, sublimating dissatisfaction in a permanent trap on-screen, keeping it from spilling into reality. They should have thanked him. But instead, the authoritarians, be they Nazi's or J. Edgar Hoover, fought him. And Chaplin had enough hubris and pomposity himself, to think that the public would always rally to his side.

Now, that's a story. One that Chaplin would appreciate, if he wasn't living it. But, instead, Chaplin saw himself as he always saw himself—the hero. You could say of Chaplin what Alice Roosevelt Longworth said of her President-father Theodore: "He wanted to be the bride at every wedding, and the corpse at every funeral." Chaplin loved being the Clown and the center of attention, but he also wanted to be taken very seriously, as he saw himself. Quite the dichotomy. That Chaplin couldn't embrace his own pretentiousness as part of the act was what turned his reel-comedy into real-tragedy.

But don't drop any tears for Chaplin. He lived an extraordinary life...of his own creation. Well, feel bad for him for this movie, perhaps.

The problems start with the screenplay. The timeline uses his films as the spine of it, set up by little incidents that inspired them. A more fitting strategy for a film-symposium than a movie, especially a movie about a comedian: Nothing kills a joke faster than having to explain it. The films are the high-lights; they are punctuated by explorations of Chaplin's relationships with the women in his life, starting with his Mother (eerily played by Geraldine Chaplin, the person's real grand-daughter!), then his lost loves, whether by his own design or by his inability to maintain a love greater than his own. This is interrupted by the lamest of devices—going over the autobiography with his ghost-writer (Anthony Hopkins), in a kind of literary psychiatric session. They amount to repeated episodes of the aging Chaplin clinging to his fantasies and the writer calling "Bull-shit," once literally.

This may be a convenient way to film in the blanks, but it also splinters the narrative force. Are we to believe Charlie, the biographer, or what we see with our own eyes being represented? And as the subject is a film-maker, it's a bit like falling down a rabbit-hole of fun-house mirrors. Who do you trust? The end-result is taking none of it very seriously, as Attenborough can't resist speeding up some episodes in a representation of silent film techniques. Nothing is real. A little contrary for a biography.

Then, the tone is so heavy. Starting with a title sequence of Chaplin taking off his "Tramp" make-up (exposing the real man, get it?) to a melancholy score by John Barry, that would be more suited for a funeral, the film never gives up the tone of self-important tragedy that ultimately swamps the movie and any good feelings that one might have for Chaplin, the man, his work or the movie.

But, every dark cloud has a silver lining. In the case of Chaplin, it is its star, Robert Downey, Jr. Downey was a once-removed member of "The Brat Pack," the coterie of young actors who buzzed through Hollywood in the late 70's and 80's, appearing in ensemble pieces by John Hughes and other directors. Appearances in his father's films, a couple of featured roles and a disastrous stint on "Saturday Night Live" offer no hint of the disciplined, exemplary work he brings to the title role, eerily evoking the look—especially the smile of Chaplin—and, most amazingly, pulling off the physical comedy—Chaplin's particularly physical comedy—the role required. He was honored with his first Oscar nomination (losing to Al Pacino's first Oscar win for Scent of a Woman.), but, after Chaplin, Downey's performances would turn more physical, quick-silvered and nuanced, paving the way for a universal respect for his craft that even an errant personal life couldn't derail. Downey's evocation is the one reason to watch Chaplin, rather than, say, reading about him...or better yet, watching the man's films.

The immigrant looks upon the Promised Land: Robert Downey Jr. as Charlie Chaplin 
looks at a strip of this new medium, film, left on the cutting room floor. 
Of course, the footage is of him.

* Gandhi beat out E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial for Best Picture that year. I understand the Academy's hesitancy to give the statue for an alien combination of Shane and Lassie, but no amount of prestige attached to a project can replace a film's status years after the fact. This one was a mistake. And short-sighted, replacing typical Awards reverence for "prestige," rather than popularity or endurance.

Silverado

Silverado (Lawrence Kasdan, 1985) Director Lawrence Kasdan took his big box office successes with Body Heat and The Big Chill and parlayed them into a Big Gamble to revive the western genre with this "all-in" tale (co-written by himself and his brother Mark) of four travelling pilgrims who happen to collide and find enough common ground in skill sets and back-story that they end up resolving each others' business. Why they happen to find each other in all the empty space of the West is a bit of a mystery, but I have a feeling it would have been inevitable as the four of them seem to follow the directions of their own individual moral compasses. Despite their differences, they're going to end up in the same place.

Just like the country. Even though it starts out in the dry wilderness of the West, everything seems to be moving to civilizing and taming the wild, except that things aren't exactly going to plan.

"Nothing wrong with the land. It's just the people," says one of the settlers of Silverado. That settler's brother gets an example of that at the very start of the film: Emmett (Scott Glenn) is asleep in a shack—at least it has a wood-stove—when the door burst opens and guns start firing. A reach for a holster and one guy is dead, but bullet-holes start blasting through the walls, and the roof explodes from rifle-fire. Emmett fires sight-unseen, anticipating the movements and when he finally exits into the sunlight, three men are dead, two horses are on the loose, but one has stayed. That horse will come in handy twice in the movie: once as transport and once as a clue to why someone would want Emmett dead.

Title sequence. While Bruce Broughton's classic score* starts with the first tremulous chords as Emmett exits the shack (in a move not to dissimilar from the opening shot of The Searchers) to reveal a dawn landscape and the music blossoms into full-throated Americana with a chime announcing the title of the movie, Broughton's main theme is presented over shots of Emmett's character travelling with the two horses across various picturesque landscapes, finally reaching a desert, where he spies a prone figure baking in the sun....wearing nothing but long-johns, his legs nonchalantly crossed as if he'd fallen from the sky that way. Emmett takes out his canteen and tentatively offers the sun-roasted character some water. He croaks something unintelligible. Emmett leans closer and we hear the first words from Paden (Kevin Kline): "Pleased to meet you."

They're also the first words spoken in Silverado, and already it sets the pattern for the dialogue that acts as series of laconic, well-chosen ironic words that make up the bulk of the film's banter ranging from austere sentiments that can have hidden depths of meaning and lines that are clever for their brevity and what's left unsaid. Kasdan has written many impressive original scripts and adaptations over his career, since his first optioned script (for The Bodyguard, sold in 1980 but not filmed until 1992), but none is as rich as this collaboration between the two Kasdan brothers.

Over nighttime coffee—Emmett always seems to have coffee—the two men share some history—how Paden got into that predicament (robbed of everything and left for dead by some fellow travelers) and his first summation of his experiences with luck, and Emmett's shack shoot-out ("Aw, I had to get up, anyway" is Emmett's comment). Emmett, it seems, has just been sprung from Leavenworth ("Never been there," says Paden) and he's going to meet up with his brother to reunion with his sister's family.  He asks Paden where he's going, and Paden's reply is practically undecided:

"Where's the pinto going?"

To the nearest outpost, apparently. The two make an odd pair, riding into the fort—the dusty cowboy and the guy in his skivvies. Emmett flips Paden a coin to buy some clothes to make himself presentable "I'm good for it," he says, and absent-mindedly tips the memory of a hat at a shocked mother and daughter. He may not be needing that coin. Across the way, he recognizes his horse...and his pants...and his shirt...boots...gun-belt and guns. The guys getting ready to mount up, so Paden runs into a general store, grabs a gun, but is stopped by the proprietor—that gun doesn't equal that coin. "Well, what can I get for this?" says Paden in a hurry.

Not much. The gun he gets is falling apart, the cylinder falling out of it, plus a box of cartridges more destined for dirt than defense, given his firearm. He has just enough time to hastily assemble the pistol, load a couple of shots, while the guy who's second hand Paden is riding down on him, shooting from horseback—one shot takes out the business-end of his long-johns and he takes a studied aim and fires the guy right off his (Paden's) mount.

You don't shoot a guy in the middle of the street without attracting attention and the local constabulary has questions and they're not buying a bum's story about getting robbed "Can't you see this horse loves me?" The Cavalry Sergeant (Sheb Wooley, he of The Wilhelm Scream) isn't impressed. "I had a gal do that to me, didn't make her my wife..." But, Paden's name is on the inside of the saddle he says and when he's asked for clarification, a voice in the crowd speaks up "P-A-D-E-N"

That's what the saddle says, all right, just like the man says. The man is Cobb (Brian Dennehy) and he and Paden have history. "Where's the dog?" is practically the first thing he asks him. It goes unanswered. In Silverado, some things are best left unsaid, but you will find out about them...eventually, and if you're not in too much a hurry.

Despite the shared past and Paden's recent change of fortunes (or maybe because of them) Cobb offers him a job working with him again. "I've given that up..." Paden says evasively. "So have I," replies Cobb. "I have a legitimate job now." The two commiserate just long enough for one of the men that Cobb HAS hired to be released from the stockade. It's Tyree (Jeff Fahey), who also knows Paden...only too well. "Where's the dog?" he sneers as he rides past him.

Emmett and Paden (with his clothes hanging back on him, again, but still missing his hat) make their way to the town of Turley: Emmett's going to "meet a guy on the way to Silverado." Paden rides along once he finds out there's a saloon and women there. 

And breakfast. They're on their way to eat when they're mistaken for a couple of trail-hands supposed to lead a wagon-train to the town of Silverado. When the two actually show up, they eye the hands suspiciously when they actually don't count their pre-job half of their wages. Odd.

At breakfast, a tall, dark, dusty stranger named Mal (Danny Glover) walks in and asks for a drink of whiskey and a bed (he's been without either for ten days). He's served, but the place's owner comes out and gets ugly and demands the stranger leave, which he doesn't. That's when three rough types decide to interfere and the stranger makes quick work of them and is only interrupted by the Turley Sheriff Langston (John Cleese) with a Pynton-esque "What's all this, then?" Langston advises Mal that he is not welcome in Turley, as it is his job to keep the peace. "That ain't right," says Mal, but his only defiance is to take a long pull from his whiskey, satisfied.

Langston, charged with keeping the Turley peace, sits down with the other two strangers, Emmett and Paden, and asks their business ("We'd like to stay," says Paden meekly). Emmett inquires about the man he's looking for—"about my size, full of juice, wears a fancy two-gun rig." "I know where that gentleman is..." says Langston.

Next stop: jail, where Emmett's brother, Jake (Kevin Costner) is delighted to see him. But, there's an issue—Jake is in jail for, in his view, "kissing a girl." But that act resulted in unpleasantness escalating to Jake killing a man...for which he is scheduled to be hung the following dawn. Emmett opines that this will certainly disappoint their sister, and he and Paden leave the jail. On their way to the local saloon, Emmett says regretfully he'll have to spring Jake, and Paden tells him he can't be any part of that.

He's spoken too soon. Upon entering the saloon, he recognizes a familiar sight—his hat, on a particularly surly gambler, who, when challenged, briefly stands to draw and quickly sits down again, dead from a shot by Paden.

He does get his hat, but also a night in the pokey, at the very least. "It was self-defense!" he says lamely as the door swings shut and locks with a clang. "That what I said!" says his new cell-mate, Jake.

True to form, there is a jail-break made, despite previous protestations, an inside job between the men sharing the cell, and Emmett who has created a distraction by burning down Jake's intended gallows and been standing by the now-three horses to make their escape. They are pursued by a hurriedly pulled-together posse led by Sheriff Langston, but they are stopped in their tracks by some welcome interference from the banished Mal and his Henry rifle.

"Now, I don't want to kill you, and you don't want to be dead..."

And as, the four have mutual interests in the direction of the town of Silverado, they ride together and director Kasdan and composer Broughton make a big show of their side-by-side cantering as a unit, galloping across a magic-houred vista. It's mean to be a "Moment," showing solidarity and unification of purpose as four strangers become one, for a moment, galumphing to a common destination, even though, in their minds, anyway, heading for different destinies.

But, I've always found it amusing—one of those moments where Silverado invokes the overblown melodrama of the "horse-opera" days of the western, edging up to the fence of "camp," but not quite crossing over. The four guys are just too precise of marksmen, always have that "just-so" reply, despite some flecks of shadow seem to be compelled to be on the side of virtue...as when they come across that wagon train again, and volunteer to help recover the party's "stake" after it's been stolen by those very trusting trail-hands they'd encountered earlier. All four are all too willing to risk life and limb in a well-coordinated intervention for a bunch of strangers. Of course, they're the good guys.

That moment of equine synchronicity is always a matter of amusement to me—but not derisively, mind you—not only because it's a bit overblown, accompanied as it is with Broughton's tripletting trumpets, but also because it's just amusing for me to see these four New York Method trained actors riding four abreast like natural cowboys. They carry it off, but it still brings a smile to my face every time.

"After a while, I won't be so pretty. But, this land will be."

It's emblematic of a generally quirky, but nonetheless scrupulous casting that also includes Dennehy's Cobb, Cleese's Sheriff "not from these parts", Jeff Goldblum's snaky gambler (named "Slick"), Roseanna Arquette's prairie flower love-interest, and especially the character of Stella, as portrayed by 4' 9" Linda Hunt ("The world is what you make of it, friend. If it don't fit, you make alterations.")—none would be found at the top of the 8x10 stack as obvious choices for their characters, but there's something about their heft—or lack of it—that immediately communicates a contrast in their interactions that allows the realization of their principled places in the universe to an audience far beyond what the sometimes circumspect dialogue insinuates.

"Welcome to Heaven..."

That goes for The Big Four, too. As the story progresses, fortunes rise and fall, loyalties are tested—sometimes to their limits—but that shot of the four riding astride stays in the mind throughout the movie. You can't imagine these four hombre's of differing, but no less expert skills, going against each other, despite how each one handles (or man-handles) a conflict. But, you can imagine that they make a formidable team, each acting separately, but with similar intentions, choosing their battles and and taking care of them the best way they know how.

Take, for example, the big ending action-piece in the town of Silverado, where, once and for all, personal goals having been met, they take on the last remaining bad guys who have insinuated themselves into the affairs of the town, in a four-fronted military action, each to their own fashion (familiar ones to those folks who have seen a lot of Westerns): Jake goes in loud and flashy;

Mal goes personal with some close-order street-fighting.

Emmett goes street to street, using the whole town as a back-drop, a defense and a weapon;

and Paden—he gets the old-fashioned mano-a-mano gun-down.

Despite their different methods, personalities, and their personal battles, they are still bonded together as a unit as they approach the town of Silverado, where their stories and challenges center on family, loyalty, and their repercussions.

No matter what movie associated with Kasdan I've seen—and I've seen just about everything including the recent standalone Solo (written by Kasdan and his son and directed by Ron Howard)—the strongest, most fully realized, and least dog-eared movie he's made is Silverado (Body Heat comes in a close second). It's almost too perfect, with the dialogue pointed and full of call-backs and reflections ("Didn't have much choice," "Bad luck" "That ain't right..." "Sounds good...") and a sureness of direction that's direct, not too fancy, but does take advantage of the film's widescreen field.

And it is just fun, with nice touches of malice to raise the stakes and make it a bit less larky—to spoil the mood and make you root for the good guys to win. It's an entertainment machine, with heroes who are too competent to fail and rarely miss their mark, with either bullets or words, and all the actors—all of them—are enjoying the ride, and that's infectious.

Silverado feels like family.

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