Just like his contemporary Billy the Kid, Jesses James has become the subject of a myriad of books and films. Heck, even Roy Rogers made a couple ("Days of Jesse James", "Jesse James at Bay") that capitalized on the name but didn't really have anything to do with the real life outlaw. This film actually turns the James-Younger Gang into the Younger-James Gang, with Cliff Robertson headlining the cast as Cole Younger and Robert Duvall taking a back seat as a maniacal, God-fearing Confederate sympathizer still fighting the Civil War.The picture provides an interesting diversion with that new fangled national sport called baseball. The first time I ever saw a ball game in a Western was in a Richard Boone episode of 'Have Gun Will Travel'. In that one, a base runner was shot attempting to stretch a team mate's hit to score at home plate and was summarily shot by an opposing player. I was fully expecting to see that here, but the game stayed civilized with only full body contact used to thwart the opposition. One wonders why they needed an umpire.Back in Northfield proper, the outlaws prove that robbing a bank can indeed be a shovel ready job. If the true history of the raid included a gang member getting locked in the bank safe, I'd never heard of it before. It didn't seem plausible to me even if it did happen, but I'm intrigued enough to look it up later. For revisionist Western fans, this one will prove to have some merit, though for my money, I'll take the 1980 Walter Hill flick "The Long Riders" with that amazingly choreographed slow motion horse jump through the windows for the getaway. Now that was a wonderment.

Honor among thieves is carried to the extreme in "The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid". Showing compassion for victims of corrupt banks, with swift retribution, the gang is still fighting the Civil War in Minnesota. Gradually being overwhelmed by progress, these outlaws look quite out of place. The story is told in a linear fashion, with no annoying flashbacks. Robertson and Duvall are surrounded by a believable supporting cast, that looks the part. My only objection is a couple scenes go on entirely too long, and the film would actually be better off without the interminable baseball scene. Worth seeing for the performances and authentic feel of the movie. - MERK

Just saw this movie and must say without Duvall's performance this might rank as one of the worst Westerns ever made..I loved the snow capped mountains around Northfield and the hokey mustaches on some of the characters.. (some even looked like they were ready to fall off). The baseball game scene appeared to be just a way to lengthen the movie and had nothing to do with the actual raid. The chasing around by the Pinkerton group was almost comical and hard to watch. The only thing I did appreciate was Duvall's and Robertson's performances, but unfortunately neither warranted any type of awards because of the low budget antics of the screenplay. This very, very low budget film is not worth the time....

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.