Almost from the beginning, Mayfield throws caution to the wind, puts his head down, and plows unfailingly ahead -- which is good, because if he'd flinched for just a moment, it might've become painfully obvious how bare and formulaic the Roderick Taylor and John Rogers script was. Although it's got a wagonload of witty, wry one-liners perfect for the movie's shoot-'em-up style, it has an equal share of howlers -- dialogue which inspires laughter but was almost certainly not intended to.

      Fortunately they're smothered by the movie's up-tempo action sequences (themselves complimented by Trevor Rabin's score), which are numerous and clearly the favorite of director Mayfield. The Old West shoot-out is a very different beast than the modern-day gunfight, in which automatic weapons are replaced by cumbersome revolvers and rifles, but Mayfield orchestrates the action with great skill. Mayfield also has an eye for the larger picture, and both he and cinematographer Russell Boyd keep the camera out of the mud so the viewer never feels disoriented -- the action that is transpiring onscreen is lucid.

      The gunfights also fill out a story which is loosely based on historical events and individuals. It reeks of a few good ideas run through the meat grinder of a how-to class on screenwriting, but it also serves the movie's purpose: to entertain audiences with likeable heroes doing heroic stuff. Foremost among those heroes are Jesse James (Colin Farrell) and his brother Frank (Gabriel Macht), and their cousins Bob (Will McCormack) and Cole Younger (Scott Caan), who've returned home to Liberty, Missouri, after four long years of fighting on the losing side of the Civil War.

      Though they're glad to be home, their return does not come under the happiest of circumstances. Under the guidance of East Coast railroad magnate Thaddeus Rains (Harris Yulin), the Rock Island Railroad has moved through Missouri and is forcing farmers off their land in the name of westward expansion. To see that his operation runs smoothly, Rains has hired the infamous Allan Pinkerton (Timothy Dalton), founder of the Secret Service, to handle the troublemakers. There are a few bright spots for our heroes-- Jesse's childhood friend Zee (Ali Larter) has grown into a beautiful young woman -- it's apparent that their fighting days are far from done, and so they make plans to sabotage the railroad's plans for progress.

      Thus the James-Younger gang is born, and although by Hollywood's standards much of this is surely considered very exciting, it's actually somewhat bland in retrospect. Most of the outlaws are generic wisecrackers who are likeable mostly because of their good looks and persistent charm, although a handful of characters do manage to stand out. Gabriel Macht plays the older, wiser brother role with a quiet reserve which is most endearing of all, and Ali Larter coaxes an undeniably admirable amount of sexy charisma out of a stale love interest character with few decent lines. Most enjoyable of all, though, is former James Bond actor Timothy Dalton as the quasi-villain Pinkerton; he serves up his best impression of Sean Connery while showing a bit of admiration for the James-Younger gang -- a "worthy adversary," as Connery might've said.

      But for the most part this isn't a character movie, and it most certainly isn't a movie about plot or suspense or any of the other values that traditionally comprise an enjoyable film. Rather, it's about a movie which pushes itself over the top through sheer chutzpah. Furthermore, director Mayfield works quickly, efficiently, and is always on the move -- some ways like a good magician, which might be an appropriate metaphor because combining this script and this cast into an enjoyable production is nearly a feat of magic. Judiciously edited down to a very audience-friendly running time of 95 minutes, it won't put viewers to sleep or have them looking for the exits. More importantly, though, it was edited in such a way as to eliminate any loose ends -- there's no sense of wasted time in American Outlaws.

      Of course, by no stretch of the imagination is American Outlaws a technically good movie (and more than likely it's a technically awful one), but it's a movie that can be admired and enjoyed for the diversion that it is. It may push all of the usual buttons, but it pushes them in the right order and at the right times -- and you can fault no movie for deftly serving up what audiences enjoy.

Craig Roush, 2001