Danny Glover, Kevin Costner, Scott Glenn and Kevin Kline.

In the early 1980s, Lawrence Kasdan was the go to screenwriter. His writing credits include Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Body Heat (1981), The Big Chill (1983) and Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi (1983).  He wrote Silverado with his brother Mark.  Lawrence also directed and produced it.

It starts with a cowboy, Emmett, being attacked inside a shack.  After killing his attackers he walks out the shack door to reveal a panoramic desert landscape.  It is a direct nod to the opening scene in John Ford's The Searchers (1956).  Emmett comes across a man, Paden, laying in the desert wearing only his pink long johns.  Emmett gives him a drink of water, and never has the line, "Pleased to meet you."  been spoken more sincerely.

They join up and go to a town where they discover that Emmett's brother Jake is in jail.  "All I did was kiss a girl!"  They break him out and befriend Mal, who was kicked out of town because he is black.  Mal is heading to his families ranch.  The four come across a wagon train and help them out with some men who robbed them.  Just before reaching the town of Silverado, they all part ways.  Jake and Emmett head into town, to see their sister, while Paden gets a job in a saloon.

Mal goes to see his family, where only his father remains.  His sister has moved into town as a saloon girl.  The entire town and countryside seems to be owned and run by wealthy land owner McKendrick. This includes the sheriff.  His men are trying to run Mal's dad off his land. 

Silverado is the film that made Kevin Costner a star.  He steals every scene he is in.  Jake is a charming saddle bag over flowing with energy.  He can never stand still.  His eye for the ladies always gets him into trouble.  "I don't believe a lady has to explain anything to a man this ugly."  He says to a man in a saloon competing for the attention of a saloon girl.

After Emmett crosses the sheriff, his deputies try to kill him, but he is saved by Mal.  Glover shoots one and aims his shotgun at another.  He then says one of my favorite lines, "I don't want to kill you and you don't want to be dead."  The deputies nab Jake and his nephew, shoot his brother in-law and burn his sister's home.   With little left to lose, the four friends unite against their common enemy.

The entire cast is good, including the supporting actors.  Helen Hunt as the saloon owner and John Cleese as a sheriff, are the two stand outs.  Cleese's first line is, "What's all this then?" It is a familiar line from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Silverado is an action packed adventure.  From a stampede to a jail break, it incorporates many classic movie western themes and elements.  It ends in not one, but two shoot outs and a climactic middle of the street gun fight.  Silverado was the best made western since The Magnificent Seven (1960), that did not star John Wayne or Clint Eastwood.
 

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