The Shadow Riders Review

MPAA Rating: NR
Released: 1982

The Shadow Riders is a film adaptation of famed western writer Louis L'Amour's novel of the same name, detailing the rollicking adventure of two brothers as they pursue a gang of renegade Confederates and Mexican slave traders across the border to rescue their kidnapped sister, girlfriend and the town's womenfolk. If you enjoy old-style Westerns that blend an irreverent attitude with plenty of shootouts and action, you'll want to check out the Feature Attraction…

The year is 1865 and the Civil War has just come to a close, but unfortunately for captured Confederate soldier Dal Traven (Sam Elliott), not all the Yankees are so willing to let old grudges go. As he stands ready to be executed, a band of old compatriots successfully mount a last minute daring rescue and free him from the clutches of death.

Meanwhile Mac Traven (Tom Selleck), an officer in the Union army, decides to head home to Texas upon hearing of the war's end. Along the way he stumbles across his brother Dal, who happened to get himself into yet another spot of trouble after his last brush with death. With a strong sense of bemusement, Mac helps his brother out of his bind before reminiscing about old times as the duo ride home together.

Not all is well on the home front as they soon discover, for their siblings, a bunch of townsfolk and Dal's sweetheart, Kate Connery (Katherine Ross), have been kidnapped by a band of ex-Confederate soldiers that refuse to let the war end. The soldiers, led by Major Cooper Ashbury (Geoffrey Lewis), are escorting the kidnapped townsfolk to Mexico where they will exchange them as slave labor to Colonel Holiday Hammond (Gene Evans) for guns and ammunition.

Dal and Mac aren't the type to take such things sitting down, so they decide to break their Uncle Black Jack (Ben Johnson) out of jail to assist them in pursuing the gunrunners over the border. But as if ex-Confederate soldiers and gunrunners aren't enough problems for the Traven brothers, their daring jail break sparked the ire of the sheriff, who retaliates by sending a posse after the would-be rescuers.

The Shadow Riders plays out like a Western you would see during the golden age of the genre. Much like a John Wayne flick, the movie has its tongue in its cheek throughout the frequent showdowns and action scenes. For some viewers this is a definite strength, but for others that prefer the gritty spaghetti-western atmosphere of the 60's the film may leave a light sense of disappointment.

Although the film contains your standard Western faire, and accomplishes it well enough, The Shadow Riders was originally made for television, a fact that often shows in the cinematography. This isn't to suggest the movie is poorly done – it just has that made-for-TV feel to it sometimes.

For the most part the acting was fair at best; there were too many characters to really get a good feel for any of them, and what we did see was sometimes a bit hammy. Then again this is to be expected in lighthearted films within this genre, so it's not far different than what you would have expected to see in the 50's.

Sam Elliott and Tom Selleck were great fun to watch; both play the roles of cowboys very convincingly and are able to inject some humor into their performances without going over-the-top. They alone are enough reason to watch this movie.

The Shadow Riders is a good film and a welcome surprise during a decade that turned a cold shoulder towards the genre. I do have to admit to preferring the harder spaghetti-western style to the American lighthearted style exhibited in the 40's and 50's, so for that reason I'll be knocking a point off the review score. Since that is a personal bias, if you enjoy John Wayne style Westerns you'll probably enjoy the film even more than I did and want to add a star or two.

Movie rating: 7 stars

If you enjoyed The Shadow Riders you may also find the following films to be of interest:

• The Long Riders
• The Quick and the Dead
• Lone Wolf McQuade

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