This review includes full spoilers. Proceed accordingly. For other movie reviews from me, click HERE:
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Comment: Dusty ain’t all there, is he?
Rating: R
Director: Christopher Cain
Writers: John Fusco
Stars: Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney, Terrence Stamp
Release Date: August 12, 1988 (United States)
Run time: 1 hour, 47 minutes
THE PLOT:
via wiki:
In 1870s Lincoln County, New Mexico, English cattleman John Tunstall hires a wayward young gunman named William “Billy the Kid” Bonney to join the “Regulators” who live and work on his ranch: Doc Scurlock, Jose Chavez y Chavez, Dick Brewer, “Dirty” Steve Stephens, and Charlie Bowdre. Tunstall tries to educate and civilize the young men in his employ, and clashes with rival rancher Lawrence Murphy, a well-connected Irishman in league with the corrupt House.
One of Murphy’s hired hands, McCloskey, joins up with Tunstall, while Doc attempts to court Murphy’s Chinese ward, Yen Sun. Murphy’s men kill Tunstall, leading his lawyer friend Alexander McSween to arrange for the Regulators to be deputized and given warrants for the killers’ arrest. Hotheaded Billy challenges Dick’s authority as the group’s foreman, as the Regulators attempt to take Murphy’s henchmen in alive. Instead, Billy guns down several unarmed men, including McCloskey, whom he suspects of still working for Murphy. Newspapers paint the Regulators as a deadly gang headed by a larger-than-life outlaw, “Billy the Kid“.
With bounty hunters seeking them all over the West and unsure where to go, Chavez leads the others on a peyote trip. One of the men on their warrants, Buckshot Roberts, tracks them down and a shootout ensues. Roberts barricades himself in an outhouse and kills Dick, and as a reaction, the rest of the Regulators shoot up the outhouse. This leads the others to go on the run, while an injured Doc goes his own way. Chavez reveals that Murphy’s corruption led to the deaths of his mother and her Navajo tribe, and urges the others to abandon their need for bloodshed, but Billy takes charge as their new leader, determined to avenge Tunstall.
Doc visits Yen Sun before rejoining the gang, and they kill the corrupt Sheriff William J. Brady and his men. They meet with a furious Alex, who explains that their badges have been revoked. Though they are now wanted men, Billy insists that their actions will bring attention to Murphy’s corruption. While Charlie revisits a brothel, Billy kills an arrogant bounty hunter, and the gang escapes to Mexico, where Charlie marries a local woman. Soon-to-be-sheriff Pat Garrett warns Billy that Murphy’s men will make an attempt on Alex’s life the following day.
At Alex’s house in Lincoln, the gang is surrounded by Murphy’s men and famed outlaw John Kinney. Realizing that they were lured into a trap, the Regulators survive an entire day’s shootout. U.S. Army troops on the Houses take arrive, as does Murphy himself with Yen, who runs inside and is reunited with Doc. Murphy orders the soldiers to set fire to the house, while Alex’s wife leaves unharmed and Chavez slips away. Trapped in the burning attic, the gang throws Alex’s possessions out of the window, including a trunk with Billy inside, allowing him to surprise their attackers.
In the chaos, Chavez returns with their rescued horses, and Charlie and Kinney shoot each other dead. Doc and Yen ride away, and Steve gets a wounded Chavez onto the remaining horse to ride away at the cost of being gunned down himself. Alex is gunned down by a Gatling gun, and Billy escapes after shooting Murphy between the eyes. An epilogue from Doc reveals that Chavez took work at a farm in California, Doc moved east and married Yen Sun, Alex’s widow became one of the most prominent cattlewomen of all time, and Murphy’s ring of corruption collapsed. Billy continued to ride until he was killed by Garrett and buried next to Charlie at Fort Sumner, where someone later carved the epitaph: “PALS”.
My Review:
Young Guns was a 1980s Western, starring a group of then young male actors (the male members of “the brat pack”) who did a lot of projects together at the time and all of whom had long successful acting careers after. The movie tells the true story of the Lincoln County War, which occurred in New Mexico from 1877 and 1878, involving Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez) and other members of the Lincoln County Regulators against corrupt local officials. The film is a bit slow to get going, in the sense that I did not care about its outcome for about its first half, however, once I became invested I really enjoyed it. The screenplay is filled with a lot of great one-liners, the gun fights are fun and almost to the point of being excessive, and the very 1980s style of the production was highly entertaining without being overly distracting (whether that be the electric guitar in the film score or the slow-motion moments during the film’s dramatic gun fight finish.)
I enjoyed the minute long introduction to this movie, immensely, but I’m not sure whether that was an ironic enjoyment or whether my feelings were pure. The scene walks this odd line of brazen corniness and youthful swagger that makes it hard for me to determine my precise feelings. I’ll let you be the judge. In many ways though, the mood that is set by this intro carries with the film to its conclusion.
Young Guns – and I don’t mean this as an insult – feels like a film made by stage actors. It’s something in the direction and the line delivery. This was a more common film style, the father back in time you go, but it stands out on a rewatch, though I got used to it and it didn’t bother me. That theater feel when combined with the Old West setting and the overly 1980s film style was a hard thing for which to adjust. That may have played a role in my slow immersion into the film’s story, though it was likely not a problem for audiences when it was released The sets and costuming were great, the cinematography looked awesome, and the film is still regarded as one of the more historically accurate Billy the Kid movies ever made – so I learned a little bit of true history, too.
The weirdest, but maybe the most memorable scene in the movie occurs when the surrounded Regulators all take peyote to determine which direction to ride. Lou Diamon Phillips, in a skull-looking face paint, guides the group the the Navajo shamanistic ritual. After seeing the group deal with their condition via vomiting, hallucinating, firing off shots aimlessly, staring into the sky, and in the case of Charlie Sheen’s character, praying the Our Father prayer. They eventually are found and a gun fight ensues.
If Young Guns has a weakness, overall, it’s in the selling of the film’s emotions. I never bought into Doc’s (Kiefer Sutherland) love story, and I never cared about Charlie’s (Casey Siemaszko) love and marriage. The biggest exception to this failure though was the Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips) monologue detailing his character’s horrifying backstory, his motivation for wanting to bring down Murphy (Jack Palance), and his hesitation for accepting the danger. That moment is the place in the film wherein I became invested and started enjoying the movie.
The gun fight to end the war, and the story from the film, was fantastic. There was a ton of action, tension, and raw emotion. This was also the part of the movie where it felt most like a 1980s movie. Fortunately, as a man from four decades in the future, this was not distracting as the hour and a half leading up to that fight gave me time to adjust to the style. As far as the story, in that scene, I knew that the “good guys” were going to pull through, but I was surprised and pleased with how the movie told the story.
Overall, I enjoyed Young Guns, even if it left me with a desire to gather my closest friends and yell “Regulators!” to and about them. The movie is a period film, made in a style that is highly distinctive of its era. If you watch it today, it feels like witnessing two different moments from the past, simultaneously. For me, that was a fun experience and I recommend it to others.
Have you seen Young Guns? If so, what did you think?
