Hollywood occasionally toys with attempts to revive dormant film genres; musicals and westerns are usually the recipients of these stabs. With 2002’s Chicago, the former finally showed signs of life, though it remains to be seen if musicals will make any real comeback; the box office flop of Phantom of the Opera doesn’t bode well.

Westerns, on the other hand, have actually benefited from these revivals. In fact, they enjoyed a minor renaissance from approximately 1985 through 1995, when the genre once again seemed to peter out. Nonetheless, in those ten years, this long-sleeping form of film returned to public awareness in a way not seen for decades.

Director/writer Larry Kasdan almost single-handedly was responsible for the revivification of westerns when he made Silverado in 1985. Flush off the success of his whiny yuppie epic The Big Chill, Kasdan decided to indulge himself with a relatively big-budget stab at a western. Silverado was the result, and while it wasn't an enormous box office success, it clearly demonstrated that westerns could find an audience in modern times.

I never saw Silverado during its theatrical run or any home video releases prior to this DVD just because I'm just not much of a fan of westerns. In fact, the only reason I originally watched the original DVD was because an on-line retailer screwed up and offered the title for an awfully substantial discount; for $7 shipped, I figured I could give Silverado a try.

And I'm glad that I did. Kasdan's an inconsistent filmmaker. He's gone from highs as the writer of The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark and as the director of The Accidental Tourist to the lows of The Big Chill and Grand Canyon. (Note to Larry: stay away from yuppies!) The debacle of The Big Chill was still on my mind as I popped Silverado into my DVD player, but I found myself pleasantly surprised at how entertaining the western was.

"Fun" is the order of the day. Oh, Silverado packs a lot of the usual western drama into its 132 minutes; what western would be complete without a fair number of unjust deaths? Nonetheless, Kasdan gives the picture a larger than life quality that seems far from darker westerns like Unforgiven; from the start, there seems little doubt the heroes will prevail and the movie will offer a happy ending.

Kasdan's breezy and crackling direction is aided strongly by a terrific cast. Silverado doesn't really include one lead role. Instead, Scott Glenn, Kevin Kline, Danny Glover and Kevin Costner all function as our main protagonists, though Kline seems a little more prominent than the others, and Costner definitely gets the short end of the stick. Nonetheless, all the actors are find in their roles and they make the story more believable than it otherwise might.

Silverado suffers from some over-ambition. Along with these four leads we get four different subplots and four groups of supporting characters. To be frank, it can all be rather confusing just because there are so many participants all at once. The plot seems generally simplistic enough to let the film stay together as a whole, but greater focus would have created a more coherent film.

Nonetheless, I must admit that I rather enjoyed Silverado. I went into the film with pretty low expectations but I found it to offer an exciting and well-crafted piece of western drama.

Silverado appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 2.40:1 on this single-sided, double-layered DVD; the image has been enhanced for 16X9 televisions. Although the picture occasionally veered on the edge of excellence, a mix of flaws meant it ended up with a “B”.

One issue stemmed from edge enhancement. Haloes remained reasonably mild throughout the flick, but they showed up fairly consistently. Despite that, sharpness looked quite strong. A few wider shots demonstrated a slightly soft look, but those were infrequent. Otherwise the movie seemed crisp and well-defined. I noticed no issues with jagged edges or shimmering, but source flaws were a prominent problem. Specks popped up during much of the flick, and though the movie lacked other defects like debris or scratches, these caused quite a few distractions. The flick looked dustier than I’d expect.

As often occurs with westerns, Silverado featured a warm, somewhat sepia-toned palette. This meant few bright tones, but I didn’t regard that as a problem. The movie offered consistently rich colors with good life and dimensionality. Blacks also seemed deep and firm, while shadows were tight and smooth. I flip-flopped between a “B+” and a “B”, but between the edge enhancement and the many specks, I couldn’t justify the higher grade.

On the other hand, I felt consistently impressed by the audio of Silverado. I don't expect a whole lot from mixes for movies from the mid-Eighties; they usually sound decent but very dated. This wasn't much of a problem with Silverado. Although it lacked the scope of more recent audio tracks, I found the mix to be almost shockingly good.

The forward soundstage appeared very wide and broad. The audio presented well-localized placement of elements that blended together nicely. The rear channels mainly bolstered the music, but they did so very actively. While some films just gently reinforce the score from the surrounds, Silverado made the rears crank the music strongly. A decent amount of effects popped up from the surrounds as well, especially during gunfights. These helped create an involving soundfield.

Audio quality was also surprisingly strong; rarely did I feel like I was listening to a 20-year-old film. Dialogue sounded consistently clear and natural, with no intelligibility problems or issues connected to edginess. Effects could appear somewhat bland at times but were generally clean and acceptably realistic. Actually, only a few gunshots slightly disappointed me, as some of those lacked great definition.

The score remained the real star of the show, however. Bruce Broughton's music comes across as full-bodied and powerful, and it really kicked in a lot of good bass. Above all else, it's the excellent quality of the score that made Silverado sound so good.

When we check out the DVD’s extras, the main attraction comes from a 36-minute and 57-second documentary about the film. The Making of Silverado offers a good look at the creation of the film. It provides us with film clips, outtakes, production stills and a combination of new and archival interviews. We hear from director Lawrence Kasdan, co-writer/executive producer Mark Kasdan, director of photography John Bailey, production designer Ida Random, editor Carol Littleton, composer Bruce Broughton, and actors Kevin Kline, Danny Glover, Scott Glenn and Linda Hunt.

We hear about the origins of the flick, its writing and development, visual design and locations, the building of the town, cinematography, rehearsals, gun training, the depiction of violence, storyboards and editing, stunts and horse-riding, acting choices, the atmosphere on the set, balancing the various storylines and cut sequences, sound design, the score, original plans for a sequel, and the movie’s legacy. This program offers an excellent look behind the scenes of the flick and it packs a lot of good information into its relatively brief running time. It's a solid documentary.

The DVD concludes with talent files for Kasdan and seven of the actors; as is often the case these are extremely brief and almost useless. We also find the film's theatrical trailer and a couple of pages of decent text production notes in the booklet.

Silverado is a fun and compelling movie that can go astray at times but offers enough consistently good thrills to warrant repeated viewings. On DVD, it looks good and sounds great. A fine documentary makes the package even more worthwhile. Silverado merits purchase for anyone who thinks a light western may be fun.

To rate this film, visit the Special Edition review of SILVERADO