Silverado arrived at a unique point for Westerns. The genre suffered through a serious dead patch in the 1980s and the film has endured in part because it's one of the few decent Westerns from that era. On the other hand, another Western opened the same year -- Clint Eastwood's near-brilliant Pale Rider -- and Silverado comes off as unduly frothy in comparison. Sleek, corporate, and packed to the gills with far too much plot for its own good, it can't help but fade in the face of a cowboy maestro at the top of his game.

Having said that, writer-director Lawrence Kasdan invests so much joy and goodwill into the proceedings that it can't help but win you over. Its busyness stems in part from trying to embrace every corner of the Western -- complete with four heroes, corresponding villains, and a gaggle of supporting players constituting every cliché from the sympathetic saloon gal to the treacherous gambler. While some sections utterly fail to connect, others bring a winning smile to your face with nothing more than a few well-placed quips. It's like a colossal buffet: You take what you want and leave the rest, readily forgiving the worst of it because the best just tastes so good.

Kasdan earns further points by defying convention even as he upholds them. Potential cardboard cutout characters spring to vibrant life thanks to the likes of Linda Hunt, John Cleese, and Jeff Fahey. At the top of the list stand Kevin Kline and Brian Dennehy -- two of the film's many leads, who set the overall pacing and succeed in spreading their considerable charms across the entire running time. The remaining three heroes -- Scott Glenn's laconic Emmett, Danny Glover's righteous Mal, and Kevin Costner's brain-addled Jake -- catalyze around Kline's amiable drifter Paden, slowly convincing him to take sides in their struggles. Dennehy's Cobb is equally laid back, and yet remains the only villain besides Fahey to register a pulse. He and Paden are old friends, and Cobb hopes to ease the other man into playing ball with the titular town's corrupt cattle barons. Their slow dance around each other -- ending the only way such conflicts should in a Western -- grants Silverado the closest thing to a structure it has.

Kasdan packs the remainder with an ever-changing grab bag, trying on different bits of genre narrative like coats at Nordstrom's. Here's a jail break! There's a cattle stampede! Over there's a homesteading widow (Rosanna Arquette) aching for a good honest man! (Only the Indians are missing: a wise move considering the tragedy of that era for them and the film's overall optimism.) Silverado ebbs and flows around the relative quality of each episode. Successful vignettes thrive on a jaunty tone and the obvious relish of the cast, while more problematic scenes struggle vainly for traction. The need to give every named actor something to do shoots it in the foot more than once (the less said about Jeff Goldblum's appearance, the better). Thankfully, Silverado has so much going on that you need only wait a few minutes for the most desperate sequences to improve.

Indeed, its overall fizziness ultimately becomes its saving grace, for while Silverado lacks the heft of the genre's best efforts, it's often a lot more fun than they are. Kasdan's script (aided by his brother Mark) brims with clever dialogue, delivered with relish by his talented ensemble and bolstered by a constant sense of Saturday matinee glee. Those of us who came of age in the 1980s viewed it as our introduction to the genre: distinct from Eastwood's more seasoned musings and presenting a Boys' Own look at a genre which -- at the time -- seemed to be in permanent decline. The film has held up quite well in the ensuing years, provided you don't poke too hard at its shakier elements and can accept its dizzying smorgasbord on its own terms. Such longevity speaks volumes, even for lighthearted entertainment, and the film's lasting reputation suggest that simple romps can endure quite nicely if the filmmakers make the effort. Kasdan did, and in a small quiet way, the Western is all the better for it.