Billy the Kid is an extremely popular character in films. Somewhere I read that his character has been used in 170 or so Western movies, played by actors from Audie Murphy to Paul Newman, one of the most familiar figures depicted in Westerns. Young Guns and its sequel Young Guns II are two of the best portrayals, in my opinion.

Young Guns stars Emilio Estevez as the fabled outlaw who reputedly killed 21 men before he was 21. The screenplay follows the contemporary pulp accounts of the “Lincoln County War” fairly accurately, with Billy and his fellow runaway teenagers taken in and tamed by the genteel Englishman John Tunstall, a transplant to the arid New Mexico desert. Tunstall (Terrance Stamp) has a ranch and employs the boys as wranglers. In the evening, he teaches them how to read and write and generally how to be gentlemen. There are six boys, all together, played by Charlie Sheen, Dermot Mulroney, Kiefer Sutherland, Casey Siemaszko, Lou Diamond Phillips, and Estevez.

Tunstall has a rival, Irish immigrant Murphy (Jack Palance) who also has a ranch and wants the federal beef contracts for the Indian reservation. Murphy’s gang of toughs gun Tunstall down in cold blood when he doesn’t respond to threats. This sets the six boys at loose ends and they begin to follow Billy, a natural leader, even though Charlie Sheen had been the nominal leader while Tunstall was alive. Rather than to scram like the natural urge of most of the boys, Billy decides to go head to head against the Murphy gang. A local lawyer (Terry O’Quinn) gets a warrant against the Murphy gang and the sheriff deputizes the boys (dubbed the Regulators) to go out and bring them in to trial. Billy instead begins executing the malefactors in true vigilante style, much to everybody’s chagrin. Thus began the Lincoln County War.

The boys are now fugitives from justice themselves and much of the movie concerns their movements evading the pursuers and striking back into town to bring justice to Tunstall’s murderers. Did I mention there were bounty hunters? Great character actor Brian Keith plays a memorable cameo as Buckshot Roberts, a bounty hunter who takes on the whole gang by himself. Another memorable scene concerns a saloon braggart who tells a senorita what he’s going to do to the kid when he finds him while, unbeknownst, Billy is standing right next to him. “I’d sure like to touch the gun that’s going to kill Billy the Kid,” Billy tells him, feigning awe.

Young Guns is full of comic relief like the time that Dick (Charlie Sheen), carrying on in the Tunstall tradition, is saying grace before a meal. The exchange between Sheen and Estevez over the suitable length of a prayer will have you rolling on the floor. Similarly, Dermot Mulroney with his perpetually dirty face will have you chuckling with his frequent asides about Billy, “He ain’t all there, is he?” Emilio Estevez gets a lot of good lines like, “I see you’ve got Charlie Crawford with you.” Boom. “Hey. Charlie’s not with you any more.” Newcomer Billy also sobers the other boys who are hacking on him when asked why he killed his first man. “He was hacking on me.”

Most of the acting is very well done with Emilio Estevez convincingly portraying the lunacy cold blooded Billy was plagued with. Lou Diamond Phillips’ performance is probably the weakest. His big soliloquy about the fate of the Native American is unintentionally funny in the context. Jack Palance, Brian Keith, Terrance Stamp, and Patrick Wayne all do a good job in their supporting parts.

The screenplay is decent, showing the encroachment of civilization on the fast disappearing wild West. A few of the weaker parts concern Keifer Sutherland’s forgettable romance with a Chinese slave girl and his attempts at poetry. Overall, it does a good job balancing the lighthearted tomfoolery of the young protagonists against the deadly seriousness of the numerous gun battles. The 1980s dialog will be a con for purists, but I found it not to detract.

For fans who like the actors or Western movies in general, Young Guns is a good contender with all the violence of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti Western coupled with some good natured humor. I also recommend Young Guns II.

Happy viewing!






Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV