Hill is very much in the American grain, the inheritor of the Ford-Hawks-Walsh tradition of artful, understated action film making.

Walter Hill's first outright failure.

What's ultimately missing is a definable point of view which would tie together the myriad events on display and fill in the blanks which Hill has imposed on the action by sapping it of emotional or historical meaning.

Strips away a lot of the steely gazes and taciturn men from Hill's first few pictures and gives us richly detailed interpersonal dynamics in the James-Younger gang and the men and women circling around them.