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 o call
"American Outlaws" a western is making a
mockery of all the westerns that's come before it. Oh no, "American
Outlaws" isn't a
western, it's a rather simpleton movie where the characters
happen to wear 1800s-era clothing and everyone wears a gun holster. Instead of
high schools, you have the Wild West, and instead of fast sport cars, you have horses. Other
than that, everything is the same in "American Outlaws" as if they were in,
say, one of the "Scream"
movie, or any of Freddie Prinze Jr.'s movies for that matter.
"American Outlaws" is the umpteenth retelling of the
Jesse James legend, the Missouri (pronounced "miss-sour-rha", natch) bank robber who became legendary and was generally considered the
"Robin Hood" of the South, since he supposedly robbed from the rich
gave to poor farmers. In this version, the James boys have returned from the Civil War with
their buddies the Younger boys, to find that not everything is right back home. It seems
the greedy railroad people and the greedy bankers (is there ever any other kind
in westerns?) are pushing poor Missouri farmers off their ranches in the name of
progress. To right this
blatant injustice, the James and Youngers become outlaws. Hence the title.
There is also very little authenticity to the movie, and I doubt if the
filmmakers cared about such trivial things. In fact, according to the movie, the
Civil War was all fun and games and the North were back shooters and the South
were actually the good guys. Frank James, a poor Missouri boy who lives on a
farm with his ma, can quote Shakespeare and knows the finer points of land laws.
Allan Pinkerton, the famed detective, was in actuality a thug who pushed poor
farmers off their land and twirled his mustache to indicate how evil he is. Repeating
rifles
were plentiful during the Civil War (which makes me wonder why everyone was
using muskets, but that's just my brain thinking nonsense again).
Also, Jesse James invented the shoulder holster and actually wore 4 shoulder holsters simultaneously.
(Those guns must weigh plenty!) The Missouri
farmers, probably the most red-necked "rednecks" of the Southerners,
invited Indians to their table freely because they (the Indians) also "kill
Yankees," hence they're a-okay in their book. Oh, and mousse and hairspray were plentiful, otherwise how else
could you explain the perfect hairstyles of the actors?
I'm a big fan of Westerns, but there's no western here,
just a high school movie transferred to the Wild West. There are some minor fun
to be had, like how everyone keeps calling Jesse James by his full name. (Of
course contemporary Americans wouldn't know who you were talking about if you
just said "Jesse" or "James," but in fact you had to say his
full name in order to indicate who you were referring to.)
Ali Larter plays Colin Farrell's love interest, but who
cares, really? Larter shows little ability to act but my is she easy on the
eyes.
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