Silverado (1985)

I'm not typically a fan of movies with Kevin Costner in them, but as my father observed about The Untouchables, it's not too bad when there are other people carrying the acting load. So we got the four cowboys who over the course of the first 45-60 minutes, cross paths, help each other out a little, then part company. 

Scott Glenn narrowly avoids being killed in ambush at the start of the movie. Along his way he finds Kevin Kline in his long underwear in the desert. They speak up for Danny Glover when he has to fend off some racists in a tavern. They can't keep him from being told to leave by John Cleese, but he didn't get lynched. Then Glenn rescues his hotshot kid brother (played by Costner, who I can not see as a young hotshot, even standing next to Scott Glenn who always looks about 65 years old), and during the escape, Glover provides some covering fire.

All roads lead to the town of Silverado, though, and all of them find problems there. So they have to team-up a little more formally, after each of them has it rather painfully hammered (or stomped in Glenn's case) home that they can't handle this solo.

It's nicely set-up that while each of the four sort of has their own nemesis, it all dovetails back to one overarching problem. The classic Western problem of the big cattle rancher who thinks everything is theirs. Glover's parents are run off their farm, Glenn and Costner's friends are threatened on their land. Kline is an old bank robbing buddy of the sheriff (Brian Dennehy). Although I'm not entirely clear on how Jeff Goldblum's character (a dandy named Slick) is tied in, other than his connection to Lynn Whitfield, playing Glover's estranged sister.

There's nothing flashy about the movie (other than one shot early on where Glenn tips a table so his rifle flies across the room to him and they clearly tried to shoot it in a way that would look cool, but just looked really cheesy), but it's solidly made. Takes the time to build the characters, establish the stakes, lay out what side everyone's on, then let lead commence to flying.