Isn't this, in a lot of ways, a movie about masculinity against toxic masculinity?
Charlie has a checkered past that he's still struggling with. Boss is the cowboy to end all cowboys who stands on nothing but principle. Mose is literally the guy who never starts a fight -- only ends them. Button is still the young man trying to find out what being a man is really supposed to be, and getting punished accordingly when he's still behaving like a boy.
By contrast, the bad guys all seem to be grown-up boys. They might be good at a few things -- even dangerous in the physical sense -- but, they're not masculine in any good willed nor traditional sense. They're a bunch of weak men who need to find their strength through aggression. They're not men who can find the strength to stand up for something more important.
To me, Boss and Charlie are real men -- particularly Boss.
These are people who own up to their pasts. They keep their pain inside until it's an appropriate time to let it out.
They're chivalrous. They're capable of killing; but, they choose not to until they need to defend their own lives or their property.
It's been more than twenty years and this movie still gets to me.