68
Metascore
15 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineTHE LONG RIDERS is one of the last great westerns made in America, directed tautly by Walter Hill from an excellent, well-researched script. The cinematography by Ric Waite is magnificent, the period is beautifully captured, and Ry Cooder's outstanding score nicely incorporates folk music of the era. The whole feeling of this film is one of antiquity, an atmosphere marvelously created by Hill and enhanced by a superb cast.
- 100Hill wants the viewer to read his frames, not his dialogue; lighting, angles and cut ting carry the weight of meaning. Perhaps he sends too many people to meet their maker in balletic slow-motion. But that is only a small reservation. Hill is very much in the American grain, the inheritor of the Ford-Hawks-Walsh tradition of artful, understated action film making.
- 90Time Out LondonTime Out LondonConcentrating on familiar rituals - the funeral, the hoe-down, the robbery (a stunning tour de force in slow motion) - Hill pays tribute to such directors as Ford, Hawks and Ray, emphasises the mythic aspects of the Western, and focuses on the subjects of kinship and the land (probably suggested by Scotsman Bill Bryden's screenplay). This last theme is emphasised by Hill's coup of casting real-life brothers as the members of the gang. A beautiful, laconic and unsentimental film.
- Despite its age, The Long Riders remains quite fresh. By combining elements of classic Westerns with a modern narrative, Hill and his capable cast render a thrilling look at characters often misinterpreted by Hollywood.
- 88Slant MagazineJake ColeSlant MagazineJake ColeThe Long Riders takes more than a few cues from John Ford, favoring laconic characters whose projected confidence masks an inability to vocalize basic desires.
- 60CineVueBen NicholsonCineVueBen NicholsonThe main hook of The Long Riders is clearly in the casting, but this never feels gimmicky in a film that attempts to balance the pastoral and the brutal. It’s a noble ambition and one which works for the most part; there are occasions upon which it means a jarring switch of tone but largely the timbre remains consistently elegiac.
- 60IGNIGNHistory fans will probably love the film for its authenticity. Everyone else on the other hand might have a hard time sitting through it. It is extremely interesting if not wholly entertaining.
- 50The New York TimesJanet MaslinThe New York TimesJanet MaslinMr. Hill weaves their gestures together with a portentous elegance that promises a great deal that it never delivers.
- 30Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrWalter Hill's first outright failure, this revisionist western draws on the major themes of his work—the relationship of pursuer and pursued; the beauty of clean, planned action; the attraction to violence and resultant moral revulsion—but none of them ignites.