The Long Kill

I've seen the singers before. Willie is always golden... Kris & Johnny Cash did a real groaner about the last days of Frank and Jesse James, but this is MUCH BETTER than that.

Willie is always fun to watch, because his timing is so good, and Kris is a great outlaw in this one. Kris just looks at people and they think twice about tangling with him.

Waylon is their buddy who gets gunned down like a dog at the beginning, and he narrates a lot after that. (Shades of the Dukes of Hazard.) If you like these guys, you'll LOVE them in this movie. The bad guy is really bad. The "bad guys" -- i.e. "outlaws" -- are really good, and the dialog just rolls along. Not a dull moment -- even Travis Tritt is pretty god, altho he may not be "ten food high and bulletproof." Rick Tombstone, AZ

Country singing legends Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, and Travis Tritt form their own posse to go after Sancho Gracia who has killed one of their friends, Waylon Jennings. Even though Tritt is a sheriff now and the other two are kind of mellowed out outlaws, they all ride to get even for Jennings and administer their own brand of Outlaw Justice.

I found elements of such big screen western classics as The Searchers, Ride the High Country and Valdez is Coming all mixed in with the plot structure of Outlaw Justice. All of these guys do fine jobs and create some interesting characters. But the holes in the story as well as the lack of credible motivation for some characters leave Outlaw Justice really lacking.

Initially, this movie seemed like it would be just another bad flick among the ranks of western movies. Surprisingly however, I found this film to be pretty enjoyable. For me, it beat many of the other country star movies made to promote their music. (For example Stagecoach (1989)) While it isn't perfect, it is a quite wholesome and a good way to celebrate the musicians. One of my main problems however, was the advertisement to include Waylon Jennings when he had very little screen time.

I stumbled upon the 1999 TV movie "Outlaw Justice" by random chance here in 2024. Actually, the copy of the movie that I got a hold of was titled "The Long Kill", so go figure.

With this being a movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to sit down and watch it. Sure, I am not all that keen on Western movies, but I have to say that I figured with country legends Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson in the leading roles, I was sort of drawn in.

Writer Gene Quintano actually put together a good and entertaining script for director Bill Corcoran to bring to the screen. Sure, one can argue that the script is rather generic for a Western movie, but it actually proved to be a rather enjoyable movie to sit through. I was genuinely entertained by the story here.

While I am not particularly a fan of neither Willie Nelson or Kris Kristofferson, then I will say that they carried the movie quite nicely. And they were joined by the likes of Chad Willett, Waylon Jennings and Jonathan Banks on the screen.

If you enjoy an archetypical Western, then "Outlaw Justice" is well-worth checking out.

My rating of "Outlaw Justice" lands on a six out of ten stars.

I had not realised these singers acted too until this The basic plot has a lot of promise to be a classic enjoyable straight 'action western' with possible 'feel good' or comic possibilities as well. The singers have surprising screen presence and the production runs along quite well and logically until the last shootout But the violence was generally more graphic than I like or necessary, with the usual questionable American popular romanticisation and simplification of vigilante-ism or ' a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do '. Some bits made no sense or were clearly unrealistic or fantastic so the film seemed undecided between being a straight classic western or a 'feel good' Good Guys Always Win and Are Heroes to Boot show The final scenes were rather illogical in terms of behaviour and spoilt an otherwise consistent plot. Not much more is needed to make this an 'above average' film so the unfulfilled promise is disappointing and surprising given the actors involved