Main Cast: Kevin Kline, Scott Glenn, Kevin Costner, Danny Glover, John Cleese
Release Year: 1985
Country: US
Run Time: 132 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Lawrence Kasdan's Silverado is a fond hark back to the all-star, big-budget westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. The various plotlines converge at the town of Silverado, held in thrall by crooked sheriff Brian Dennehy and his behemoth "deputies." The four disparate heroes--Kevin Kline, Kevin Costner, Scott Glenn and Danny Glover--prepare to do battle against Dennehy for personal reasons ranging from mercenary to altruistic. Sidelines characters include duplicitous, dandified gambler Jeff Goldblum, frontier widow Rosanna Arquette and gimlet-eyed saloon owner Linda Hunt. The film is stolen hands-down by Kevin Costner, playing an irresponsible young gunslinger who never speaks when hootin' and hollerin' will do. A classic, High Noon-style showdown caps this rousing retro western. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
On the heels of his top-notch script for Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), a film which single-handedly revived the long-dead cliffhanger, writer/director Lawrence Kasdan reimagines another vintage genre for modern audiences, this time the Western, with equally delightful and successful results. An absolutely first-rate piece for which some credit must be given to the filmmaker's brother, co-writer, and producer Mark Kasdan, a longtime aficionado of classic oaters, the film manages to be respectful to its cinematic roots while at the same time displaying a welcome, intelligent irony and some playful cheek. Casting is a virtual primer on how to fit the right actor to the correct role, but then, the brothers Kasdan give their stars some juicy parts with which to work. In particular, Kevin Kline shines as a troubled antihero equivocating over moral choices with a very modern detachment from his surroundings that intentionally comes across as sometimes Zen-like, sometimes weak-kneed. Kevin Costner is triumphant in his youthful breakthrough part, joyfully leaping into his role with a zest and energy sadly lacking in many of his later films. To top it all off, the film boasts a rich number of supporting players and an environment so lovingly realized, it could be a Robert Altman film if it weren't so lighthearted. Its frolicsome tone and sense of humor may make it difficult for some to take so seriously, but Silverado is a genuinely great Western. It ranks with McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971), Unforgiven (1992), and the television miniseries Lonesome Dove (1989) as among the best examples of its lamentably scant form in the latter 20th century. ~ Karl Williams, All Movie Guide
Rosanna Arquette - Hannah; Brian Dennehy - Cobb; Linda Hunt - Stella; Jeff Goldblum - Slick; Todd Allen - Deputy Kern; Ray Baker - McKendrick; Jerry Biggs - Bartender; Thomas Wilson Brown - Augie; Kenny Call - Deputy Block; Dick Durock - Bar Fighter; Jeff Fahey - Tyree; Ken Farmer - Deputy Kyle; James Gammon - Dawson; Patricia Gaul - Kate; Gene Hartline - Bar Fighter; Jim Haynie - Bradley; Earl Hindman - J.T.; Brion James - Hobart [uncredited]; Richard Jenkins - Kelly; Jacob Kasdan - Stable Boy; Jon Kasdan - Boy at Outpost; Marvin J. McIntyre - Clerk; Pepe Serna - Scruffy; Joe Seneca - Ezra; Bob Terhune - Guard Cowboy; Bill Thurman - Proprietor; Lynn Whitfield - Rae; Sheb Wooley - Cavalry Sergeant; Amanda Wyss - Phoebe; Ben Zeller - Townsman; Meg Kasdan - Barmaid; Ted White - Hoyt; Jane Beauchamp - Neighbor Woman; Jerry Block - Townsman; Zeke Davidson - Mr. Parker; Sam Gauny - Deputy Garth; Lois Geary - Mrs. Parker; Ross Loney - Red; Roy McAdams - Tall Outlaw; Bill McIntosh - Deputy Charlie; Rusty Meyers - Conrad; Walter Scott - Swann; Charlie Seybert - Townsman; Autry Ward - Hat Thief; Troy Ward - Baxter; Brad Williams - Trooper
Credit
Mark Kasdan - Associate Producer, Wallis Nicita - Casting, Kristi Zea - Costume Designer, Lawrence Kasdan - Director, Mia Goldman - Editor, Carol Littleton - Editor, Michael Grillo - Executive Producer, Charles Okun - Executive Producer, Bruce Broughton - Composer (Music Score), Gerald O'Dell - Makeup, Dan Striepeke - Makeup, William Elliott - Production Designer, Ida Random - Production Designer, John Bailey - Cinematographer, Lawrence Kasdan - Producer, Anne McCulley - Set Designer, Arthur Jeph Parker - Set Designer, Roy Arbogast - Special Effects, Rick Kline - Sound/Sound Designer, Donald O. Mitchell - Sound/Sound Designer, Jerry Gatlin - Stunts, Lawrence Kasdan - Screenwriter, Mark Kasdan - Screenwriter
Four "lawful outlaws"—Paden (Kevin Kline), Emmett (Scott Glenn), Jake (Kevin Costner) and Mal (Danny Glover)—meet and travel to the town of Silverado, where they thwart a corrupt rancher and the ruthless sheriff who is on the rancher's payroll.
The film opens with a gunfight; Emmett kills four men, henchmen of a man named Ethan McKendrick (Ray Baker) (though Emmett does not know it at the time), whose father Emmett had killed a few years before. Emmett has recently been released from prison for the killing. As he travels to the town of Silverado, he finds a man, Paden, lying near death in the desert. The men Paden had been riding with had robbed him of nearly everything and left him for dead.
Emmett and Paden ride to the town of Turley to meet Emmett's brother, Jake, who has been jailed unfairly for killing a man in self-defense. Paden is also jailed when he finds the man who stole his Colt pistol and hat and kills him. Emmett breaks the two of them out of jail and the three escape with the help of Malachi Johnson, a black sharpshooter who was run out of town by Turley's overzealous sheriff, expatriate Englishman Langston (John Cleese).
After helping a wagon train of settlers recover their stolen cash from a group of thieves and leading them to Silverado, the group disbands to find their relatives, or, like Paden, settle into the town. The story line then develops the classic range war plot common in both Western American history and fiction. Emmett and Jake learn from their sister's husband, the federal land agent for the area, that Ethan McKendrick is attempting to maintain the open range, which he will dominate with his enormous herds of cattle, by driving all lawful claimants under the United States Homestead Act off the land through violence carried out by his cowboys and paid henchmen. Mal finds his father's farm has been overrun by McKendrick's men and cattle, and his father has been driven from his land onto a nearby mesa, where he hides in a cave.
The group soon discovers that the town's sheriff, Cobb (Brian Dennehy), an old friend of Paden's, is on McKendrick's payroll and is defending the actions of the cattle rancher's thugs. Emmett, Jake and Mal decide to fight back and Paden is left to decide whether to keep the lucrative job Cobb has offered him or pursue justice. After McKendrick and his men burn the land office and kidnap Emmett and Jake's nephew, Paden determines to fight with his friends. The four stampede McKendrick's cattle to provide cover for a raid on his ranch, in which most of the false cowboys are killed and the kidnapped boy is rescued. The four then return to Silverado where, in a series of ingeniously designed scenes, each separately encounters and defeats his personal antagonist. In the last of these Paden kills Cobb in a classic Western fast draw duel.
In the final scene Emmett and Jake leave for California, their long stated goal, Mal and his sister reunite and decide to rebuild their father's homestead, and, in a final irony, the audience learns that Paden is now sheriff of Silverado.
Lawrence Kasdan offered the role of Jake to Kevin Costner in part to make up for having cut Costner's scenes in The Big Chill.
Earl Hindman, who plays J.T. (the brother-in-law of Emmett and Jake), plays Wilson on the television series Home Improvement, although he is hardly recognizable since a running gag of the series is to always obscure his face. At one point, J.T. is gagged, in a manner similar to the "face-hiding" that Wilson used.
The final line of Silverado, "We'll be back!", shouted by Jake as he and Emmett ride into the sunset, has had countless fans wishing that a follow-up movie had been made (a 1999 nationwide video poll chose Silverado as the film "Most Deserving of a Sequel"), but time has eliminated that possibility.
John Cleese's first line: "What's all this then?" is a direct reference to the words often uttered by law enforcement officers who entered the scene of a crime in Monty Python's Flying Circus.
Kevin Costner owns a casino in Deadwood, South Dakota called the Midnight Star, after the saloon in the movie. He had wanted to name the casino Silverado, but there was already a casino by that name in Deadwood.
