Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Earp (1994)

Runtime: 191 minutes

Directed by: Lawrence Kasden

Starring: Kevin Costner, Dennis Quaid, Michael Madsen, Linden Ashby, Jeff Fahey, Gene Hackman

From: Warner Bros

Here is me catching up now; tonight I'll post a pair of reviews at the same time as they both feature the same auteur. With this motion picture, it's not as great as Tombstone but that doesn't mean it's bad, not at all. I talk about this in my Letterboxd review below:

I have had this movie on Blu for a long while; I just wanted to wait to see this until after I had rewatched Tombstone; as I explained in my last review, I put off that rewatch until Sunday night, so finally I was able to get to this. Thankfully I had the free time to watch this 3 hour film in one sitting.

The plot is simple: It is a bio-pic of the famed lawman of the late 1800's. We start off with his childhood and see his dad is Gene Hackman. We see Wyatt from cradle to the grave, pretty much. Needless to say, there are comparisons to be made between this and Tombstone; there are a number of characters who appear in both, such as his brothers Morgan and Virgil, Doc Holliday, Big Nose Kate, Sheriff Behan, Josie Marcus, etc. To me, it's personal opinion which performances you think are “best”. I will say that the big name cast here (from Gene Hackman's small role to Jeff Fahey, Mark Harmon, Michael Madsen-who couldn't get out of this to be Vincent Vega-Bill Pullman, Isabella Rossellini, JoBeth Williams and Tom Sizemore; there's also a few people that became more famous later, like Tea Leoni and Jim Caviezel) all perform admirably, but I have to note that Dennis Quaid as Doc Holliday in a different sort of performance than what Val Kilmer did as the character was just about as great; I mean, it was real close when you compare the two, IMO.

I don't need to say that this fudged certain facts from Earp's life; after all, that's what Tombstone did... hell, Wyatt himself stated tall tales and various myths about his life. It's just that some moments were clearly done to be cinematic and it just seemed goofy, you know. At least I can say that the movie seemed to portray Earp in an honest manner. I do not know much about his personal life or how he acted, but the movie was not afraid to show that he was “cold-hearted”, a phrase you hear uttered a few times. To be honest and blunt, at times he came across as a real dick. He did not treat his brothers' wives nicely, and then there was him cheating on his common-law wife with Josie. This was originally going to be a six hour miniseries and it may have been better that way; sure this is 191 minutes long but with the eventful life he had, only some parts of his life were covered.

Still, I can at least say that this was good; as I mentioned before there were nice performances all around, there was some very pretty scenery and while this wasn't a biopic that hit a home run, you still got the idea of why Wyatt Earp was one of the more famous figures of the American West; he steadfastly believed in upholding the law and yet if you mess with his family, you will face retribution. It may be because I am a history nerd but I was never bored with this and I am glad I finally checked this out after putting it off for a long time.

One last thing: I remember back in 1995 when my dad (a big fan of both the Western genre and of history) saw the movie, he remarked that he wasn't sure if it was accurate that the movie contained an F-bomb, asked by a bad guy pondering, “Who the F is Wyatt Earp?” In the pre-Google days, he was able to look it up by other means and he discovered that yes, the F word was around back then. Hell, it has been used for a few centuries now.