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"American Outlaws"
(Reviewed August 5, 2001)
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Cheap, insincere, jokey, made-for-TV-movie-quality junk. Imagine a Keanu-esque dummy version of Jesse James, played by an actor who scowls with all the menace of a punk doofus who just found out that somebody filled in his favorite skateboarding pool while he was out behind the Taco Bell doing bong hits. Older brother Frank resembles a grinnin', blond, twinkly eyed Ben Affleck, which sort of says it all. Former James Bond Timothy Dalton grimaces throughout as the pursuin' Mr. Pinkerton, dead set on bringin' the gang to justice. Kathy Bates disgraces herself as Mama James (whose dying line "I see the lord, and he's a little shorter than I thought he would be" has to be the howler of the year). Some blond bim California-girl clone plays Jesse's true love. You have to wonder where she found the 19th-century dentist who gave her such purty snow-white caps.
There is not a single second of this ultra-lightweight timewaster that is convincing or entertaining. At one point, Jesse and the gang nearly destroy an entire town in so preposterous a manner that one wonders why they did not simply leap from the ground and fly away under their own magical powers instead.
All of this wouldn't be quite so offensive if the tale had been about fictional characters. But attributing the goofy exploits herein to real people who really lived seems wrong, lazy and stupid. Selling crap like this by tacking on character names that have a high audience-recognition factor is just plain lowdown and despicable, even if we are talking about common criminal curs. (Hey, I don't even like this practice when a good movie does it, such as "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." Orson Welles had the right idea, by using real people as templates for a fictional story and MAKING UP NEW NAMES.)
Going to see this movie will give you a genuine feeling of audience participation, because you're for-sure gonna feel like you wuz robbed when it's over.
Back Row Grade: F
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