LogFAQs > #957184649

CoolCly: The concept of this story is solid but the execution is just awful. I started out thinking this was a decently well made movie with some significant problems, but it the problems stacked up towards the end that made this. I think the jump in picture quality for 1988 over earlier movies fooled me into thinking this was a better made movie, but picture quality doesnt make a movie.

I like the atmosphere around this guy collecting strays. Like he really believes the way of life he's leading. But the choices they make are completely at odds with what he wanted, and unfortunately, I don't think the film is really that self aware about it.

The kids are a bit awkward to be introduced to and learn about, and there are so many that I didn't form distinct impressions of all of them. They rushed way too fast into killing their benefactor without really establishing their bonds and how bought in they are into what he's doing. I doubt I could name or even point out half of them even right after the movie.

The romance with the asian girl follows along with that - it doesn't feel real at all. She has even less purpose and agency than the women in the older Western movies.

Then it's just straight to the boys attacking and shooting people. It really glosses over them getting authority to do this, and then they just start ambushing people. There's conflict between the boys on whether to kill or capture but it's all happening so quickly it doesn't really work. The pace is just too fast.

The vision quest could have been a neat concept, but again. Doing stuff like this with characters you haven't gotten me familiar enough with and invested enough makes it fall flat, and it just comes across as a very exploitative "oh yeah we have a native lets use native magic"

I dislike it when these Westerns line characters up to talk shit in situations where they are VERY clearly in a terrible position, just because I guess it makes them seem dangerous or cool. Like this old guy that comes up and says he's gonna take the Kid and all the rest of them for their bounties. He's standing in the open in front of them with a rifle in each hand that are not held at all like they are ready to fire. He boldly says he's come to get them and they are all standing line up in front of them. Then he declare "lets dance" to begin the fighting... and drops one of his rifles and then moves to cock his other rifle and kneel to start shooting.... and the boys all start running. And the guy misses for a while! It's so dumb - even if these guys arent fast on the draw, which we are supposed to think that they are, they should still kill this guy before he shoots one of them. It's just a complete failure of competent filmmaking. I'd let this go a little in earlier movies, but the good earlier movies actually tended to do this decently, and some did it masterfully. It's unforgivable at this point that Young Guns is doing this. They didn't sell at all that this old guy is faster on the draw than them or in a position that would be tough for them to fight back against.

Charlie just gets married out of nowhere. This story really decides to make no sense. It's there JUST to give him a choice whether to ride with them? They are on the run and shouldn't even be able to be in towns that easily without being caught.

I'm not sure if this was just my streaming service, but the final charge out of the shootout at the end was very choppy and slow motion. It was terrible. It seems like this was a stylistic choice and it didn't work at all.

The exposition epilogue to quickly wrap things up for everyone was just straight up awful.
Overall, this movie sucked in just about every way. It had a lot of potential with this cast and the premise, but it blew it to pieces.

2.5/10

Johnbobb: fuckin boooooooring. I'm gonna make a somewhat controversial claim and say that, with the sole exception of sci-fi, the 80s were a bad decade for movies. For every instant classic like Aliens or Back to the Future, there's like 5 bland brat pack schlock like this. I mean, who hears "Emilio Estevez, Dermot Mulrooney, and fuckin Charlie Sheen" and thinks "WESTERN." Every single person here looks like they've just arrived to cash in a check, and not a big one at that.
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Bear Bro
The Empire of Silence