When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

It's a strange mixture of comedy and dramatic action, cheerfully ripping off two wildly successful movies of a few years earlier, "The Wild Bunch" and "Bonnie and Clyde." Pekinpah's influence is much in evidence in the editing, since there are many brief shots of the faces of participants laughing pointlessly or gaping in shock. No slow motion, though. It's hard to imagine how director Kaufman missed that stylish trait. The long, retrograde title brings to mind several lavish flicks of the 60s -- "The Great Race," "Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines," which may in turn have been influenced by Tom Wolfe.Cliff Robertson, in a typically restrained but effective performance, is Cole Younger, the outlaw who leads a dozen others in a raid on the bank at Northfield, Minnesota, the kind of place we don't normally associate with the outlawism of the Old West.Actually, he's kind of a co-leader of the gang, the less reckless and less bloodthirsty one. His partner is Robert Duvall as Jesse James. Jesse doesn't mind slinging lead around because, in addition to stealing money, he wants to demonstrate that "the war is still going on." Kids, that war is what we call "the American Civil War." It was fought between the Northern and Southern states in the early 1860s. That's "1860s AD". The "AD" stands for "anno domini." That's Latin and it means "in the year of our Lord." Jesse James is talking about "the American Civil War." Jesse fought for the South and, like a few others, turned outlaw when the formal conflict ended. PS: The South lost.Most of the gang have nothing but contempt for the good folk of Minnesota they are about to rob of all their money. Ain't nothing' up there but Squareheads anyhow. Squareheads are most Scandinavians like Swedes and Norwegians but can include Germans and Poles too. The outlaws can't tell the difference. Kielbasi and knockwurst become jokes at the dinner table.When they reach Northfield and begin to case the joint, they are introduced to the game of baseball. They've never heard of it. "Yep, it's our National Sport!", one Squarehead brags. The baseball scene is played for laughs but, to tell the truth, it's a bit extended. After a while it no longer seems so funny when the ball lands in a cow flop or a brawl breaks out. I, for one, was happy when Cole Younger finally shoots the ball into sawdust while it's in mid air.Finally we get to the robbery itself, which takes place in rain and mud, not the dusty and sun-baked little towns we usually think of. (It was shot in Oregon, where it rains a lot.) Murphy's Law applies. "If something can go wrong, it will." The townspeople are as ready to shoot as the bandits are and all hell breaks loose. Cole Younger winds up with some 28 bullets in his body but manages to live out the rest of his life in prison, dying only in 1916.I found it kind of entertaining. The baseball scenes do have some laughs after all. And Cole Younger is as amusing as Jesse James is chilling. Not that Younger actively tries to be funny. It's just that his character has some engaging quirks and some good lines. I also thought it might be, well, instructive for younger viewers, the kind who have little history and less general knowledge, the kind who think that baseball and pipe organs, like tooth decay, have always been with us, maybe invented by cave men.

Although the central character of The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid is Cliff Robertson as Cole Younger, Robert Duvall joins a great pantheon of actors that range from Tyrone Power to Brad Pitt in playing the legendary outlaw of the old west, Jesse James. Some say that the James/Younger gang were the last Confederates out there actively engaged in warfare against the invading Yankees on behalf of the south. This film certainly takes that position.The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid took place in 1877 and was the biggest job attempted by the gang and turned into the biggest flop in their outlaw career. Word leaked out about the robbery and the Pinkertons and the local law enforcement were waiting. The incident is shown in just about every Jesse James film there is.The James/Younger gang remain populist heroes to this day in many quarters. They were an expression of outrage by a conquered people, the poor white class who saw land taken over illegally by Yankee managed railroads or foreclosed by banks with northern management they ultimately answered to. A decade later these people would find a voice in the Populist Party and if Jesse James hadn't been such a person of violence, he might have had a great career as a Populist politician, he was reputed to be that charismatic.Younger's a different story, his charisma as it were was a laid back kind. He's got two brothers to look after, Bob and Jim and wants to live long enough to get the amnesty promised by the state of Missouri. It's one of the reasons the James/Younger gang is operating as far north as Minnesota. That and the fact they can rob from Yankees if they have to rob at all.As is shown in the film, Missouri was debating an amnesty, but certain interests wanted to make sure that didn't happen. The gang is operating outside their home state, lest any outlaw activities interfere with the amnesty. And the Pinkertons want to nail them all before the amnesty ever is passed as an example.The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid is one fine western with two rugged leads and very realistic settings for the old West. Fans of that generation and younger should not miss this one.

In this film the real brain of Jesse James's gang is Cole Younger(Clff Robertson). Jesse(Robert Duvall) is a very mean guy, who does not care much for women and his brother Frank is just his yes man. Robertson is excellent as Cole Younger, he looks like a heavy man, which Cole really was, he is intelligent and human. When he hears that amnesty was given to the gang, he goes to Northfield to stop Jesse from robbing the bank, but on the way he learns that it was denied, so he decides to go along with the raid. When he learns that there is almost no money in the bank because people would rather keep it at home, he conceives a plan with the bank's owner for everybody to get scared and make deposits. There is a quite comical baseball game between St Paul and Northfield where Younger meets the town's most important persons. This version of the James and Younger's story seems to be very far from what really happened, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

I always cringe when someone claims a particular substandard movie is the worst ever, but I am genuinely tempted to make such a claim for "The Great Northfield, Minnesota Raid". While Cliff Robertson is fine as Cole Younger the rest of the cast is pretty much hopeless (give Robert Duval some credit for expending a lot of energy as he chews the scenery to an unimaginable degree).The real problem is the hopeless historical distortion and the early 1970's counterculture revision of history. This is especially unforgivable because the actual events were more interesting that the contrived garbage shown in the movie; these were portrayed a little more accurately in "The Long Riders", a better film. The "actual" events were fascinating so distortion and silly embellishment are totally unnecessary. If they can't provide a reasonably accurate retelling of the story then they should change the names and call it by its right name-"fiction".A genuine piece of crap, if there is any justice everyone associated with this mess is or soon will be roasting in hell.