Such a frustrating disappointment

I wanted to like it more than I actually did... But much of the humor totally escaped me and I walked out only mildly impressed.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.

I love looking at Sam Elliott regardless because he is a very hot sexy looking man, Tom Selleck on the other hand never did it for me because of his sheepish grins which were a turn off. This is a western not an episode of Magnum PI Mr Selleck. The movie suffers from a really bad score ,cliches and the 80's A team kind of feel where the bad guys get knocked out in one punch, the bad guys always miss when shooting at the good guys and the good guys who always hit their targets in one shot even on horseback and of course never get hurt or show any signs of bruises even when being thrown on the ground or blown up. In one scene Selleck is riding a horse alongside a train and a stick of dynamite blows up right under his horse and he gets right back up to not only grab the underside of the train car but climbs up the side of the train no worse for wear. The music is this typical disneyesque western schlock no doubt to make it more family friendly. In my opinion, it makes you just want to change the channel. It's also hard to not groan when Katherine Ross is on screen with her real life hubby Sam ELliott, She plays his girlfriend or fiancée I think which also makes it less believable since they give each other these smarmy looks as if to say "after we shoot this scene lets go get drunk and do the nasty".I think Selleck and Elliott are just eye candy for this movie to no doubt let gay guys and straight women have their fantasies. The rest of the cast including old time western stars ben johnson and harry carey jr are simply along for the usual ride of chewing up the scenery. Its too bad they couldn't have made it more gritty and left out the sap. Lamour wrote some good westerns but unfortunately added romantic aspects to them that IMO don't belong. Frontier romance is portrayed so badly in movies with sap thats why i hate it. Good thing they don't make western like this crap anymore. They need to be gritty like unforgiven or josey wales. You can have women but you cant make it sappy. 3/10

I love Tom Selleck and Sam Elliot. Together in the same just makes it better for me. Playing two brothers home from the just ended Civil War, where they fought on opposite sides, they find that their women folk have been stolen by what turns out to be Rebels who are running for Mexico to keep on fighting. The bad guys plan on trading them to some gunrunners for surprise, surprise, guns. Katherine Ross plays the brave, undaunted, heroine type. She shows great spirit and fortitude. Ben Johnson appears as the brothers long gone Uncle Black Jack, a character of dubious reputation. He turns out to be just what the brothers need. Every thing turns out well and the good guys win and the bad guys lose. Typical for a L'Amour novel.

If you loved bad '80s TV shows, you just might like this movie.This movie has a talented cast to be sure. But it's just so cliché-ridden by modern standards that it's hard to take seriously: one punch knocks out the bad guy every time; tossing a stick of dynamite takes out all the bad guys; good guys running on top of a train, continue until movie ends. There is nothing offensive about this movie, so it's fine for children and mixed-audiences. My elderly parents loved it, and it was a fine way to spend 90 minutes with them without wincing at graphic violence or cursing. But if you're looking for a movie with any level of sophistication or nuance, take a pass.

If I were to describe the Louis L'Amour novel-based television film "The Shadow Riders" in two words that might seem to contradict each other, they would be: dimwitted and fun. No, this is not a great Western or a great movie by any stretch of the imagination. Intellectually and screenplay-wise, it's mediocre at best. But in terms of the entertainment that one receives from viewing it, especially fans of the old-fashioned Westerns like myself, it both promises and delivers. There is not a single smart line or moment in "The Shadow Riders", but it's thoroughly entertaining and I was not bored with a single moment of it. I was not mightily impressed either, but I had the time of my life.I have not read the original novel by Louis L'Amour, but judging from my research, the basic plot remains the same. The film stars Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott as brothers who fought on opposite sides of the Civil War and return to their home in Texas only to find that their sisters, brother, and Elliott's girlfriend (played by Elliott's real-life spouse Katharine Ross) have been taken by renegade Confederate soldiers led by a bloodthirsty, revenge-seeking colonel (Geoffrey Lewis), who plans to sell them as slaves in Mexico in return for guns and ammunition to continue a war he feels has not ended.If somebody had come up to me after viewing "The Shadow Riders" and told me that it was made in the 1950s or 60s, I would have believed it. That could very well be the magic that works in this otherwise dimwitted Western. It has the same spirit, the same style, the same manner and rhythm of dialogue and story that the old, action-packed classics had. Yes, it's an old-fashioned Western, but that's not a bad thing at all.Yes, the film also has many moments where disbelief must be suspended. Just like in the old Westerns, when there's a shootout, the good guys score a direct hit every time and the bad guys, no matter how many shots they fire, always seem to miss. There's a scene where Selleck and Elliott are charging into an enemy camp trying to stampede their stolen cattle and are firing three to five shots from their six-guns into the air instead of wisely saving ammunition for fighting the enemy that's rousing in front of them. And I also thought it was silly how Geoffrey Lewis and the always competent Gene Evans—as well as everybody else it seems—was drawn relentlessly and vulnerably to a middle-aged Katharine Ross. Not to mention that the attitudes of several characters seem written for actors of an adolescent age even though the film was meant for adult actors.You get my point. "The Shadow Riders" is not an intelligent film. And like I said earlier, it's not a very well-made one either. But it's most certainly entertaining in the guilty pleasure range and it's eye candy with its all-star cast, many of whom are veterans from the old Western period like Harry Carey Jr., R.G. Armstrong, and Ben Johnson, who steals every scene he's in as the brothers' renegade uncle. If you're not a Western fan, there's really no big reason to see "The Shadow Riders". But if you are, or if you want to see Dominique Dunne in her last film role, then by all means, see it. You will have the time of your life.