What it needed

I watched it for the first time in years again today on HBO, and it seems to me it wasn't all that bad (except for some big plot holes - those reform school boys sure seemed to get out pretty easily) and would have been better if the ending had been better. It almost started to say (with Cabe and Tucker coming back) that you have to live up to your obligations, which is a worthy thing to say, but then it just sort of dissolved into a overblown production number ending. It might have been better if, instead of the production number, Cabe leaves in cuffs, the boys' band finishes their patriotic song, and then Tucker just breaks into a quiet guitar riff while everybody's watching the fireworks - more a "haunting reminder" that the times they are a-changin' and you can't stop them, rather than an in-your-face production number. Just a thought.