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Young Guns

Young Guns

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The flotsam and jetsam of frontier society . . .
Review: Okay. Now, I rented this movie for one reason: Emilio. I didn't know Charlie was in it (bonus), and I didn't expect the movie, quite frankly, to be that good. It was. I hate westerns. I don't like them. But this one had a comedic tone underlying all the action and shooting. Estevez is terrific as Billy the Kid, and Lou Diamond Phillips has a great scene when he talks about why he hates Murphy (the bad guy). Kiefer Sutherland has some very funny lines directed at Billy. Billy gives this long speech and then leaves, and Sutherland confides to Mulroney "I'm really not liking him." The movie successfully combines humour, action and drama. It gets bloody (can't have shoot-outs without blood) but not disgustingly so. It would've been easy to make a B movie out of the story line (it's not like it hasn't been done before) but this surpassed my expectations. Kudos!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Myth over mind
Review: So "Young Guns" is not an accurate record of the Billy the Kid legend. It is a pretty good action western, though. Emilio Estevez is the leader of the outlaw pistoliers going for revenge against the men responsable for their father-figure boss's murder. The Billy of this movie is a rash young man with a quick temper and even quicker trigger finger. The other famous man of the legend (Pat Gerrett) shows up here for a second. But it revolves around the other Brat Pack kids of the day. Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lou Dimond Philips round out his first gang. Jack Palence plays the ring leader of the bad guys (well, maybe the wrost guys, Billy was pretty reckless and a little evil hinmself) and he plays it to the hilt. The acting is not great, be warned now. It is still entertaining, if your more interested in the myth of Billy the Kid, rather than the real person.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Myth over mind
Review: So "Young Guns" is not an accurate record of the Billy the Kid legend. It is a pretty good action western, though. Emilio Estevez is the leader of the outlaw pistoliers going for revenge against the men responsable for their father-figure boss's murder. The Billy of this movie is a rash young man with a quick temper and even quicker trigger finger. The other famous man of the legend (Pat Gerrett) shows up here for a second. But it revolves around the other Brat Pack kids of the day. Charlie Sheen, Kiefer Sutherland, and Lou Dimond Philips round out his first gang. Jack Palence plays the ring leader of the bad guys (well, maybe the wrost guys, Billy was pretty reckless and a little evil hinmself) and he plays it to the hilt. The acting is not great, be warned now. It is still entertaining, if your more interested in the myth of Billy the Kid, rather than the real person.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Wild in the Wild West
Review: Somehow, popular critics of this movie seemed to miss the point (as they sometimes do). This movie is meant to be fun, and it is. I don't know a person that doesn't like this movie. I'm 27 years old, and having just watched it again, it hasn't lost a thing.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Great visually, poor otherwise
Review: This film is beautifully shot...the bleak colors and bare trees really bring the bleakness of the story to life. Oh wait, did I say story? You mean how they ride around, shoot people, hide, ride around again, shoot people again, hide again, watch Kiefer Sutherland chase some girl he only met for 1 minute and is completely in love with. I remembered liking this movie in high school and jumped at the chance to buy it so cheap on DVD after not seeing for 10 years. I was so dissapointed watching it, and the 80's-style soundtrack made my ears throb. I think the target audience who would like this film are people who have no regard for historically accurate cinema (eg- singing "auld lang syne" on new years wasnt tradition until the 1920's, phrases like "screw that" were not in existence either...I could go on but I won't), and people who were fans of the brat pack and want to see their "hotties" play cowboys and indians for an hour and a half (Still think Charlie Sheen looks just like the Marlboro man, dont you?). I gotta admit though, I still think Dirty Steve is the bomb. For the price of this DVD you dont have much to lose I guess, but if you want a good western flick I'd check out the films of Peckinpah first. This is 80's commercial cinema at it's...um, best.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great Movie
Review: This is a great movie i watched it like five hundred times last year. I loved it! It was so funny and i love guns and stuff like that! So i watched it and watched it and watched it...Now i wont watch it because i have watched it so much! But i have to admit it is REALLY GOOD!!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A Western, the way it ought to be.
Review: This is a great movie. True, it doesn't deserve any awards, but it's exactly what a western should be. It's cheesy in places, and there are some great action scenes featuring cocky, devil-may-care protagonists. I like it.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A fun movie
Review: This is a pretty good film from the 80's, which is widely hailed as a "bratpack" western. But if you look below the surface, and at what is really going on in this movie it provides some interesting counterpoints to the mainstream interpretation of the film.

The story itself is partly a traditional coming of age story, but the lessons taught are strictly late 20th century (despite the setting). There are huge themes of searching for a purpose and a place, the almost unbearable uncertainty of life in a world that seems so intent on running life its own way and then our "Regulators" who are not really "regulating" anything except the chaos and carnage they're causing.

The metaphor of a "whirlwind" is used repeatedly throughout the film, and it hints at the unstoppoable sense of alienation those born between 76 and 80 feel towards the rest of the world. There is a great loss of identity here that hints at the same nerve Nirvana's Cobain would later tap into musically.

Traditional notions of family, morality and sanity are thrown aside and instead the characters develop from their own initial world views into something of their own... "pals". Whatever that means.

My own personal overanalysis aside, watch this flick for fast paced gun fights, some great one liners ("he was hackin' on me" and "no, no, no... it's 'you and I'" come to mind). Not to mention Jack Palance as an over the top stereotypical Irish gangster villain. And a great peyote scene that shows some people (Dirty Steve and Billy Come to mind) should NOT use drugs. For Chavez and Doc, it's an illuminating experience that shows not all drug use is "bad".

All in all this film is one of my favorite flicks to date.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: an apology for a western that is not authentic
Review: This is an utterly unhistorical movie. The real Billy the Kid was basically a loner who shunned gangs such as the "Regulators" bunch in this movie. One of the characters is a deputy marshal who throws away his badge and utters the usual lines about how the law is really on the side of evil. In this case, the ex-deputy joins the rest in a revelry of mindless violence all of which is committed in the name of a good cause, although it is hard to see how the violence did anything constructive.

Basically, this is just another empty action flick of mindless violence and mayhem with characters who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are the good guys. Worst of all, the movie basically portrays these juvenile delinquents as being on the right side. The idea that violence is an acceptable thing to engage in if you believe that you are in the right is just simply not the kind of message that Hollywood should be conveying to young people.

In summation, this is an awful movie.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Mindless Drivel of the Worst Kind
Review: This is an utterly unhistorical movie. The real Billy the Kid was basically a loner who shunned gangs such as the "Regulators" bunch in this movie. One of the characters is a deputy marshal who throws away his badge and utters the usual lines about how the law is really on the side of evil. In this case, the ex-deputy joins the rest in a revelry of mindless violence all of which is committed in the name of a good cause, although it is hard to see how the violence did anything constructive.

Basically, this is just another empty action flick of mindless violence and mayhem with characters who have deluded themselves into thinking that they are the good guys. Worst of all, the movie basically portrays these juvenile delinquents as being on the right side. The idea that violence is an acceptable thing to engage in if you believe that you are in the right is just simply not the kind of message that Hollywood should be conveying to young people.

In summation, this is an awful movie.


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