Could have been better

The cinematography and the direction were excellent (i'm a great fan of Raimi's Evil Dead triology and Darkman) but something lacked, perhaps the script or the pacing... the movie should have been longer and more like a epic western not a cheek in tong shoot'em up movie, it had a great leading cast Stone, Hackman, DiCaprio and Crowe and a supporting cast full of talented character actors such as Kevin Conway, Sven-Ole Thorssen, the always scene-stealer Lance Henriksen, Tobin "Jigsaw" Bell, Roberts Blossom, Keith David and the legendary and western cult-actors Pat Hingle and Woody Strode...the latter his role was cut down, and it was a shame that Sergeant Rutledge only was seen briefly in a 2 seconds sequence as a background character, the same for the usual Raimi's collaborator Bruce Campbell, another actor that his role was lost in the cutting room. I still give the movie a 7 but it had potential for a 9.