Silverado

This movie is more sophisticated and complicated than the Westerns of my childhood, and it is certainly better looking and better acted. Read full review

Silverado is sufficiently modern to make its landscapes bigger, its people smaller and its moral polarities less powerfully distinct than those of simpler, more starkly beautiful westerns gone by. Read full review

Rather than relying on legendary heroes of Westerns past, writer-director Lawrence Kasdan with his brother Mark have used their special talent to create a slew of human scale characters against a dramatic backdrop borrowing from all the conventions of the genre. Read full review

Engrossing western which inspired a huge genre revivial. Read full review

Silverado looks great and moves fast. Mr. Kasdan has packed his action well against the fearsomely long, dusty stretches of Western plain. [11 Jul 1985, p.1]

It's best when the carefully chosen cast throws itself into developing characters and building their relationships. When pure storytelling takes over after an hour or so, the picture becomes less original and engaging. Read full review

Between the gratuitous climaxes that seem to occur every 10 minutes, Kasdan parades a myriad of stereotypes before us and never develops them. In fact, he never really explores any of his characters but only provides them with enough motivation to justify the slaughter of dozens of people. Read full review

Silverado plays like a big-budget regurgitation of old Westerns. Whatkeeps it going is the generosity that flows between Kasdan and his actors. It's got benevolent energies, but not the more primal kind needed to renew the standard Western images and archetypes. [10 Jul 1985, p.26]

Silverado is a completely successful physical attempt at reviving the western, but its script would need a complete rewrite for it to become more than just a small step in a full-scale western revival. [10 Jul 1985, p.5]

As Westerns go, Silverado delivers elaborate gun-fighting scenes, legions of galloping horses, stampeding cattle, a box canyon, covered wagons, tons of creaking leather and even a High Noonish duel. How it manages to run the gamut of cowboy movie elements without getting smart-alecky is intriguing. But on the important issues, like real character development, Silverado flakes apart. [10 Jul 1985, p.52]

Agreeable but never compelling, Silverado proves it takes more than love of the western to make a good one. Maybe the dudes at K-Tell were a mite too slick for the job. Read full review

This 1985 western does a decent job of developing some dry 80s humor without completely undermining the genre, yet Kasdan's considerable skills as a plot carpenter seem to desert him as soon as the story moves to the town of the title--the action turns choppy, confused, and arbitrary. Read full review

For all its mosaic of nice details, Silverado is still a faintly hollow creation-constructed, not torn from the heart. For a generation of kids to whom the Western is a new adventure, there probably will be action and distraction enough to dazzle. Those who need to be deeply stirred by this redoubtable form will still have to wait: Silverado is good but not great. [10 Jul 1985, p.1]

The manipulative Star Wars-style score is the only novelty on tap in Silverado, which has a plot too drearily complicated and arid to summarize and an attitude almost unbearable in its dryly smirky assurance that it knows what you want from a Western, which is to say, action that never quits, emotion that's never felt, characters that are never real and situations that are never sensible. [10 Jul 1985, p.S7]