Three Amigos (1986)

Three recently fired series Western stars end up travelling to Mexico to do what they think is an in person performance, when they’re actually being recruited to protect a village against a bandit gang. It’s much the same plot as was later used in Galaxy Quest (to greater effect), where a bunch of actors are mistaken from the characters they play.

I thought it was a decent, light-hearted comedy Western. There’s a few bits that don’t make sense if you think about it too much: they seem to be both singing cowboys and silent movie stars? I haven’t seen enough early series Westerns to really comment on the accuracy of the parody – no doubt when this was released in the mid-80s there were substantially more people who’d grown up watch the originals. None the less the comedy is amusing throughout, contrasting the over-the-top stage personas of the three main characters with the more gritty “real world”.

From a plot point-of-view it ended slightly quickly. It went almost straight from them being inept, out-of-their-depth actors to somehow bumbling their way into the bandit fort, without really going through a stage of adapting to being the role of real western heroes. I think this would have been a more conventional bit of story-telling, and would probably have made a more satisfying plot. It’s enjoyable for what it is though, and so I broadly recommend it.