Outlaw Trail: The Treasure of Butch Cassidy (2006)

A Masterpiece!

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Like Young Guns II where a heavily made up Emilio Estevez as desert rat Brushy Bill Roberts reveals to an interviewer he's really Billy the Kid who didn't die at the hands of Pat Garrett, Outlaw Trail has the proposition that Butch Cassidy didn't meet his end in Bolivia with the Sundance Kid. His legacy has been a heavy load for his family to bear, particularly a surviving brother played by James Gammon in Utah of 1951.For reasons that are not really explained young Ryan Kelley thinks that grand uncle Butch survived and left a lot of buried loot in the legendary Robber's Roost, hideout for the Hole-in-the-Wall gang. James Gammon who is his grandfather discourages that belief rather firmly. But when some thieves loot an excavation site that contains clues to the treasure young Ryan is more determined than ever.He and Boy Scout buddy James D. Hardy are determined to find said treasure ahead of the thieves. Along for the ride reluctantly are Arielle Kebbel and another Boy Scout Brent Weber who is his rival for Kebbel and son of the local mayor. Outlaw Trail proves one proposition, that out on the frontier Boy Scout training comes in remarkably handy. At various points in the film the Scouts are trailing the crooks and vice versa. And the law is trailing both as the kids are now missing persons.Young Ryan Kelley gives a sincere and deeply felt performance. And the rest of the cast backs him up admirably. Outlaw Trail is a good family film that kids of all ages should enjoy.

It takes forever and a day to get going but once this family-friendly adventure makes it to the adventure part, Outlaw Trail isn't a bad little film. It's got a nice quartet of young actors as kid heroes and some quality veterans like James Gammon and Bruce McGill backing them up. The action scenes here are fairly low adrenaline but there's lots of workable humor and the wholesome bits of the story are about as non-cloying as you get with this sort of thing. It also has far too many characters, the sign of a script that needed another rewrite or two. Arielle Kebbel is cute as the dickens but the middle of the movie hangs on a suspension of disbelief that's bigger than the Grand Canyon. It's really the sort of film that's six of one, half a dozen of the other. It's good enough that adults won't cringe at it while not being good enough to make any adult want to sit through it.In the early 1950s Utah, young Roy Parker (Ryan Kelley) uncovers a plot by the local museum curator (Bruce McGill) to seek out the hidden treasure of Butch Cassidy, who was actually Roy's black sheep of an grand-uncle. The secret is a map engraved on Roy's belt buckle, so joined by his best friend Jess (Dan Byrd), his buffoonish rival Martin (Brent Weber) and the new girl in town Ellie (Arielle Kebbel), Roy races to find his uncle's lost lair and the South American gold it may contain.The biggest problem with Outlaw Trail is that the whole "chase for the gold" thing doesn't get underway until the film is almost halfway over. Before that, the story wallows in the conflict between Roy's admiration for "Uncle Butch" and the disapproval of Roy's grandfather (James Gammon), who never forgave his brother for turning to a life of Wild West crime. It's not claw your eyes out awful. It just goes on and on and on and the presence of Roy's mother (Shauna Thompson) prevents Roy and his grandfather from having enough interaction to make the conflict more than manufactured. Her part and, frankly, the role of Martin should have been excised. They're not terrible but that's screen time that should have gone to other, more essential characters and their relationships.The middle of Outlaw Trail needed some significant reworking as well. Roy and company have to get to the gold before the curator and his thugs. The kids, however, are on foot and the curator has a car. There's a line about how the kids are cutting through a valley that the curator has to drive around, but come on! Unless he drove his car into the Bermuda Triangle, the curator was going to get where he was going hours before Roy.Ryan Kelley is Perfectly Acceptable in a generic hero role. Brent Weber and Dan Byrd are capable comic relief. Kebbel isn't just adorable, she more than adequately fills the teen love interest role. Bruce McGill does a good job walking that like of being a bad guy in a kid-oriented flick where you have to be believable as a child's version of evil. There's really nobody in the cast who doesn't carry their end of the show.Outlaw Trail was an okay time that would have been much better it had been sleeker and got to the good stuff in its script faster. If you're looking for something to watch with your pre-teen kids, you can do much worse than this.

This is a real wonderful "B" movie that has heart. Think Hardy boys. It is a simple, but very entertaining film won't cost you your soul or sleep. It will fire up your children's imaginations to explore and create. Don't shy away from it, it is worth every minute just for the fun factor. It has Love, bad guys, good guys, planes, trains, drama, small town folks, mountains, boy scouts, old cars and trucks, horses, history and friendship. It is a simple story that boys and girls will love with old school values and painful hidden family memories. Thoughtfully done, with great locations and somewhat campy story line that draws form the 1950's, it is wonderful entertainment that you should not miss.

On the Butch Cassidy~Sundance Kid Legend. I saw it on a preview before another DVD movie, (actually I was scene speeding), and it looked so interesting I "rewound" it and it looked very cool, so I hired it on my next trip to the video shop. ("DVD shop" sounds weird, lol).While I expected the movie to be longer and with more twists, more turns and perhaps a few booby traps (I dunno perhaps I've seen too many Indiana Jones movies, lol...) Though it was a very interesting take on the legend and an enjoyable watch, my 2 beefs were the bad guys should have had more oomph (and better lines) and the girl seemed out of character in places. A city girl gone country - although her attire was right for the period, the frump skirt didn't suit her adventurous nature ... And her character - at first she was screeching at being thrown into the back of a van and later, completely comfortable leaping from a height onto a speeding train? And then later on when they were in the mine she asked in a timid voice ... "are you sure is this safe?..." - Probably safer than jumping onto a moving locomotive, Dear....Although I enjoyed the movie, such character flaws (and bad scripting) takes me out of it. That aside, I liked Jess' character best for his enthusiasm and adventurous spirit and faith and of course Butch ... and Sundance was cute! It's definitely worth a look-see for a run romp through history and legend.