Movie Review: The Long Riders (1980)

Genre: Western  

Director: Walter Hill  

Starring: James Keach, Stacy Keach, David Carradine, Keith Carradine, Robert Carradine, Randy Quaid, Dennis Quaid, Pamela Reed  

Running Time: 99 minutes  

Synopsis: After the Civil War, the James-Younger gang is fueled by Confederate resentment and embarks on a crime spree in Missouri, holding up banks and trains. Jesse and Frank James (James and Stacy Keach) lead the gang, with support from Cole, Jim, and Bob Younger (David, Keith, and Robert Carradine). Clell Miller (Randy Quaid) stays with the gang even after his brother Ed (Dennis Quaid) is kicked out. In-between heists the men seek domesticity and the company of women, including Cole seeking comfort with prostitute Belle Starr (Pamela Reed). But as their list of victims grows, Pinkerton detectives descend onto the area to stop the gang's activities by any means.

What Works Well: Based on actual events, this is a stylish, lyrical, and violent chronicle of the famous outlaw gang. Actual Hollywood brothers portray the Jameses, Youngers, Millers, and Fords (Christopher and Nicholas Guest), with Stacy Keach as Frank James and David Carradine as Cole Younger emerging as the most grounded and charismatic characters. In the quieter scenes the script excels at filling-in the men's personalities, allowing human emotions to surface but never resorting to heroic portrayals. With the botched Northfield, Minnesota bank raid a stunning highlight, director Walter Hill and cinematographer Ric Waite deliver exceptionally gripping action scenes infused with stuntwork, slow motion, and no shortage of blood. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The production quality deserved a longer running time to more fully define the era and round-out more characters.

Key Quote:

Cole Younger: When this is all over, I'm goin' to write a book; make myself more famous than I already am.

Frank James: I trust you'll give me a copy.

Cole Younger: Nope. You gotta pay, Frank; you gotta pay.

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Movie Review: Jay Kelly (2025)

Genre: Drama  

Director: Noah Baumbach  

Starring: George Clooney, Adam Sandler, Laura Dern, Billy Crudup, Patrick Wilson, Stacy Keach, Emily Mortimer, Greta Gerwig, Isla Fisher, Jim Broadbent, Riley Keogh  

Running Time: 132 minutes  

Synopsis: Jay Kelly (George Clooney) has enjoyed a 35-year career as a movie star. He wraps-up filming on his latest production, and his manager and life-long friend Ron (Adam Sandler) expects Jay to quickly transition to his next project. But a chance encounter with Timothy (Billy Crudup), a former friend from acting school days, forces Jay to re-evaluate his life. Having neglected all his family relationships, he takes off to Europe with Ron and publicist Liz (Laura Dern) to get reacquainted with his daughter, but forging genuine human connections does not come naturally to a lifelong actor.

What Works Well: Reflecting aspects of star George Clooney's reality, this is an introspective, thoughtful, yet also peppy and often humorous examination of choices. The script (cowritten by director Noah Baumbach and co-star Emily Mortimer) is neither judgmental nor moralizing, and avoids pat resolutions. Achieving and sustaining movie star fame meant Jay was never a good father, and he gained much more from his friendship with Ron than he ever reciprocated. Decisions and actions are presented as realities and trade-offs rather than rectifiable regrets, and Jay's reflections are rich with in-the-moment dilemmas, awkwardness, and poignancy. The superlative cast includes Stacy Keach as Jay's father, Patrick Wilson as another actor managed by Ron, Jim Broadbent as a mentor, and Riley Keogh as one of Jay's daughters. Many of the supporting characters are provided with well-rounded lives to add depth, texture, and context.

What Does Not Work As Well: The running time is longer than it needs to be.

Key Quote:

Jay Kelly (acting a death scene): That's the crazy thing...everything you thought you were...isn't true.

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Movie Review: Truth (2015)

Genre: Biographical Political Drama  

Director: James Vanderbilt  

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford, Dennis Quaid, Stacy Keach, Bruce Greenwood, Topher Grace, Elisabeth Moss, Dermot Mulroney  

Running Time: 125 minutes  

Synopsis: Ahead of the 2004 US presidential election, 60 Minutes television show producer Mary Mapes (Cate Blanchett) investigates President Bush's National Guard service record during the Vietnam War era. She works with anchor Dan Rather (Robert Redford) and a team consisting of Mike Smith (Topher Grace), Colonel Roger Charles (Dennis Quaid), and Lucy Scott (Elisabeth Moss). Retired and ailing National Guard member Bill Burkett (Stacy Keach) produces copies of documents that tarnish Bush's record. But after the story airs, doubts are raised about the documents' authenticity, placing Mary's team under intense scrutiny.

What Works Well: The adaptation of Mary Mapes's book unfolds in two distinct chapters: the first half is the lead-up to the broadcast of the 60 Minutes episode about Bush's military service record. The much better second half is the aftermath, as the team of CBS journalists and their managers deal with immediate blowback. Once doubts are cast upon the critical documents, the investigative team switches from offense to defence, and the forces aligned against them prove formidable. Cate Blanchett's powerhouse performance contains space for the murky conflict between personal beliefs and journalistic integrity, while Robert Redford's sage presence invites reflection on the rise and fall of corporate television news. 

What Does Not Work As Well: The opening 45 minutes are occupied with a deadline-driven rush to investigate the President's record, and become cluttered with too many names of too many incidental characters, the search for details getting in the way of good story telling. And while the reporters are scurrying about in a frenzy, no one pauses to ponder the relative insignificance of a story about skipping obscure National Guard duties 30 years prior.

Conclusion: And dare.



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Movie Review: American History X (1998)

A forceful and violent crime drama, American History X lifts the lid on the evils of white supremacy and racial hatred corroding civil society's fabric.

In the Venice Beach area of Los Angeles, white supremacist Derek Vinyard (Edward Norton) kills two Black men breaking into his car. Derek started down the path of extremism as a young teenager when his firefighter father was killed by a Black man. Released after serving a three year sentence, Derek is reformed and eager to prevent his 17-year-old brother Danny (Edward Furlong) from following in his footsteps.

Danny is already falling under the spell of local white supremacist leader Cameron Alexander (Stacy Keach) and the boorish behaviour of neo-Nazi Seth Ryan (Ethan Suplee). However, his high school history teacher Dr. Bob Sweeney (Avery Brooks), who also taught Derek, still believes Danny can be saved. With the threat of hate-motivated violence always nearby, Derek has limited time to influence his brother.

A startling exposé of a virulent ideology, American History X is a past-and-present story of attempted redemption. David McKenna's screenplay spares no pain delving into the heart of hatred, and Edward Norton delivers a cunning performance, especially in the flashback scenes, to demonstrate coiled reasoning fed by fear of the other and released through unchecked violence.

Using an obvious but still effective technique, director Tony Kaye films the flashback scenes in black and white and the present in colour. The sequences charting Derek's rise to street level notoriety as a white supremacist leader are stronger, including a dinner table ruckus where his mother (Beverly D'Angelo) and her new partner (Elliot Gould) finally encounter the beast within the young man. A duel on the basketball courts with Black youth and a raid on a Korean-owned convenience store both buzz with the undercurrent of a scrappy movement gaining strength with local victories.

Derek emerges from prison a different man intent on steering his brother Danny away from hate, and the transformation is only partially successful. Kaye takes the necessary time to reveal what went on behind the prison walls, but when finally stitched together, that part of the story remains dubious. Even less convincing is Danny's response to Derek's U-turn, which shortchanges the effort required to undo years of organic indoctrination.

Despite the shortcuts and a clumsy ending, American History X is painful and stark, achieving shock with relevance.



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Movie Review: If I Stay (2014)

A simple love story with an ethereal layer examining the value of life, If I Stay is affectionate without breaking through to any deep levels of emotional connectedness.

Mia Hall (Chloë Grace Moretz) is a high schooler and talented cellist in Portland, Oregon. She lives at home in a loving family consisting of with her dad Denny (Joshua Leonard), mom Kat (Mireille Enos), and younger brother Teddy. Mia is going through a turbulent relationship with Adam Wilde (Jamie Blackley), a guitarist one year older and the leader of an up-and-coming local rock band.

On a family outing, the Halls are involved in a horrific car crash, and all are transferred to hospital, fighting for their lives. Mia is in a coma, and her spirit is suspended between life and death, a silent but anguished witness to the frantic activity at the hospital. In flashback, the story of her passionate romance with Adam is recounted, including the tentative beginnings, the joyous blossoming, and the tender physical closeness. As they both face the prospects of continued success in their chosen fields of music, their relationship is strained. Back at the hospital, Mia has to decide if life is worth the challenges that come with living.

If I Stay is a simple story of teenage love wrapped up in a metaphysical state of suspension between life and death. The film is overflowing with good intentions, but succeeds in being mostly pleasantly average.

Most of the drama delves into the details of humdrum first love between the popular guy and the self-conscious serious girl. The Shauna Cross script (adapting the Gayle Forman book) doesn't seem to know what to do with the more interesting life or death choice facing the comatose Mia. Too many of the hospital scenes degenerate into Mia aimless running down hallways, silently debating whether to walk into the bright light, and passively observing as the doctors, nurses and visitors fuss around her bed-ridden body.

Fortunately, director R. J. Cutler has a few good elements to play with, and he puts them to good use. Mia's family dynamic is refreshingly stable, with a quirky modern background. Dad is an ex-drummer in a garage band who gave up the fading dream of stardom and settled down as a teacher to provide stability for his kids. Mom is a travel agent not beyond phoning in sick to enjoy a snow day with her family. Mia is an ordinary teenager, talented at the cello and facing an early choice between the Julliard school of music and staying close to Adam, himself frequently on the road.

Music plays a big part in If I Stay, and Cutler magically weaves the sounds of life into the story while avoiding obvious obtrusiveness. Music is in Mia's blood, although her chosen instrument is not what her parents may have anticipated, while music is Adam's salvation. The snippets of music from both their lives move the story forward, the performances of Adam's band nudging him towards a break-out record deal and Mia's dedication to the cello culminating in a spiritual performance when it matters most.

The setting of Portland and the surrounding beauty of the Northwest (filming actually took place in and around Vancouver, British Columbia) also conveys middle class normalcy, a naturally beautiful but unglamourous place where people grow-up, live their dreams, fall in love, and sometime unexpectedly die.

The film rides on the young shoulders of Chloë Grace Moretz, and she is fully up to the task. While sometimes struggling against the creakier aspects of the script, Moretz puts on a fine show as a quiet yet confident teenager, a bit self-conscious, eager to break out of her tender shell and yet not swept up by the notoriety of dating the coolest up-and-coming musician in town. Blackley as Adam is an adequate combo of edgy, talented, ambitious, and compassionate, while Stacy Keach shows up as Grandpa and contributes plenty of grizzled presence.

Heartfelt without being taxing, If I Stay is worth sticking around for.

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Movie Review: Fat City (1972)

A downbeat story of two boxers at different career stages but possibly united in a common destiny, Fat City is beautifully grim. There is nothing to celebrate, but much to admire, as director John Huston trains his cameras on the often intentionally neglected corners of society.

Aging boxer Billy Tully (Stacy Keach) and young upstart Ernie Munger (Jeff Bridges) have a chance encounter at the local YMCA in a depressed neighbourhood of Stockton, California. They spar for a few minutes and go their separate ways, but not before Billy advises Ernie to seek out a trainer named Ruben (Nicholas Colasanto). Physically imposing but not naturally talented, Ernie makes a tentative start to his boxing journey under Ruben's guidance, experiencing both wins and losses in his early bouts. Ernie also gets into a relationship with the innocent but lively Faye (Candy Clark). After she gets pregnant, they get married, and Ernie's nascent boxing career sputters.

Meanwhile, Billy's life is headed on a steadily downward trajectory. Feeling sorry for himself and with only the briefest of past glories to sustain him, Billy hooks up with the hard-drinking, foul-mouthed and easily combustible Oma (Susan Tyrrell). Both Billy and Ernie have to resort to menial farm labour to place bread on the table, but while Ernie appears at ease with the occasional foray into the ring, Billy still dreams of a serious return to the sport, and teams up again with Ruben for another shot at glory.

With the emphasis on character and the agony of opportunities slipping away, Fat City sometimes slows to a crawl, waiting for Billy or Ernie to make the next, often wrong, decision, or to shake off the most recent drinking binge. But the drama is always propelled back in to motion, thanks to Keach and Bridges delivering powerful performances. Keach is a picture of moroseness, physically deteriorating and rarely smiling as he only sees hope in the rear-view mirror. Bridges is brighter, a man none too clear on the future but willing to smile as he greets it.

Compared to the glamour and glories residing at the pinnacle of boxing, Fat City is in a different world. Here, men get battered with no hope of any reward other than miserly pay to afford the next beer. Billy has no notable life skill, not even as a good boxer, and yet stepping back into the ring at his advanced age is the best that he can do to even hope for a better next week. Ernie may or may not be headed to the same place as Billy, but his prospects are not good. Already responsible for a wife and child and with only rudimentary boxing skills, it is difficult to imagine a future for Ernie that is much better than Billy's.

Billy and Ernie are only able to attract women who are as depressed or naive as they are. Susan Tyrrell earned a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as Oma, a highly charged, over-emotional woman so deep into the dead-end zone of life that she even manages to disgust Billy. The scenes between Billy and Oma are irresistibly painful to watch due to the raw destroyed humanity on display: a man and a woman with very little left to offer, and even the support that they provide to each other has an hourly half-life.

Candy Clark as Faye is perhaps the most optimistic character in the movie, a mix of mild manipulation and child-like innocence that she works to her advantage to snag Ernie. She is too clueless to realize his potentially severely limited value as a catch, but Fat City allows Ernie and Faye at least some self-perceived hope, drawn from relatively narrow experience with life, Ernie not yet encountering his life-defining moment.

Working from the Leonard Gardner screenplay (who adapted his own book), Huston captures without judgement the societal and human wreckage drifting towards the scuzzy end of the river. Fat City is an observant witness to lives squandered in pursuit of a desperate dream that was never there.

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