Metacritic reviews

At least hits a certain adrenaline level, and the stunts have panache. If you crave the ''Young Guns'' approach to the Old West, here it is again.

It's a sad day for film lovers when the best thing that can be said about a Western is that it's pleasant.

The best work comes from Timothy Dalton as the grizzled, Scots-accented head of the Pinkertons.

So desperate are the filmmakers to create a "hip" western that they try to cram it with action sequences that aren't very exciting.

This plot leaves ample room for viewers to sweat the small stuff, like whether Trevor Nunn's score is more Marines ad or deodorant commercial.

For years there have been reports of the death of the Western. Now comes American Outlaws, proof that even the B Western is dead.

Dalton, using a Scottish brogue coarse enough to take his tongue with it, is hootably bad, and Kathy Bates, playing Ma James, is pure ham.

The dumbest, most risible retelling ever made of the exploits of legendary bank robber Jesse James.

Some stories are eternal. They will not go away. They are told and retold for generations. Take the story of Jesse James --it is not one of them.

There's no escaping the hackneyed plot or Mayfield's conventional hand. So don't go.