Young Guns II (Dawnload, Review)

Why review Young Guns II and not Young Guns? Because, good as the first one is, Young Guns II is far superior. Think of them as the Gospel According to Pat Garrett (Young Guns) and the Gospel according to Billy the Kid, or a character called Brushy Bill, who may or may not be the real Billy the Kid.

The movie opens with a young reporter going to interview Brushy Bill, a shadowy claimant to the identity of the famous outlaw. As Brushy Bill starts to reminisce we know this is going to be a different movie from Young Guns, for it will be purportedly told from the point of view of William H. Bonney himself.

Young Guns features fine performances, plenty of action and stunning cinematography. Young Guns II has all of this, but it also has William Petersen as the outlaw turned lawman, Pat Garrett.

The addition of Petersen to the core cast of Emilio Estevez, Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips, was a stroke of genius. He fits the role of Garrett like a glove. Garrett wasn’t a likeable man, as he appears in the first movie, he wasn’t a man to be trusted at all. Garrett was a self serving opportunist who wasn’t above shooting a man in the back to claim the bounty. He himself was shot in the back and killed by an outlaw he’d captured. Petersen does a fine job with this complex and devious character.

It’s just as well that he has the acting chops, because he is up against stiff competition. Emilio Estevez reprises his role as Billy the Kid, ruining the chances of any other actor to step into those boots. For decades, Hollywood insisted that Billy the Kid was older and more rugged – the worst example being Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, with Kris Kristofferson as a grizzled old kid. But Estevez not only looked the part, he played it with a kind of manic glee that clearly states this is his role and no one else’s.

Kiefer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips – along with Estevez, his brother Charlie Sheen and others, forming the Hollywood `brat pack’ of the time – also looked fully at home in the wild west, when the guns truly were young.

As with most Hollywood movies, history gets thoroughly twisted – a rancher called Jim Greathouse mutates into a bordello owner called Jane Greathouse, who no doubt looked better naked, and various characters die at the wrong times and in the wrong places. But the whole thing is thrown at you with such energy and verve by New Zealand director Geoff Murphy that only the purists can (and do) object. This is the wild west of legend, the yarns told around the campfires by night with scant respect for the truth.

A major part of the appeal of Young Guns II is the cinematography of Dean Semler. The Aussie made his mark with Australian movies like Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and Dead Calm. His endless vistas of breathtaking beauty helped create the magic that was Dances With Wolves. The director and cinematographer from Down Under paid homage to the great Australian film The Man from Snowy River when they sent Billy and his gang careering down a mountainside in fine Tom Burlinson style.

Rocker Jon Bon Jovi and composer Alan Silvestri provided a great score to counterpoint the action. Bon Jovi even managed to get a small part in the movie – when two of the gang are released from a pit jail, he is briefly seen as a scruffy outlaw who gets shot.

Brushy Bill’s version of events and his claim to be Billy the Kid have been discounted because he would have been only two years old at the time of the outlaw’s death. But drawing him into the narrative is another way of giving this movie its flavor of yarns told around the campfire. We know to take what we hear with a pinch of salt, but that salt does flavor the beans, and they taste damn good under the stars at night.

Download