American Outlaws

Reviewed by:
Eric Alt

American Outlaws is so cheesy, it should come in pre-packaged slices. It feels like an amusement park stunt show given its own movie—not as annoying as A Knight’s Tale, and mercifully not involving Will Smith, but still slight and almost completely thrill-free.

The plot involves some moustache-twirling railroad villains straight out of a Buster Keaton film who run afoul of Jesse James (a likable Colin Farrell who will certainly get better roles) and his gang: The brain, the loose cannon, the comic relief, the Injun, and the naïve young boy who will be dead before the credits roll. James robs banks, becomes a legend, beds Maxim covergirl Ali Larter (who manages to stay deliciously clean in the dirty, dirty West…oh, the dirt!) and goes head-to-head with some sort of proto-Secret Service agent (played by former James Bond Timothy Dalton with a bad Sean Connery accent—nice touch). On a final note: aren’t the heroes in Westerns supposed to achieve some sort of victory at the end? Just checking…