Young Guns will draw a lot of different reactions. It was really a pretty popular movie, yet anyone who has studied the true events of Billy the Kid and the Regulators will be quick to express their chagrin at all the inaccuracies. Lucky for me this movie came out when I was still too young and too uneducated on the west to be bothered by any of it. And since ignorance is bliss, it has remained an all time favorite of mine.
I don’t deny the movies mistakes, sure it has plenty, but even now, after having read books a plenty on Billy the Kid, I still think it does an ok job. For having to try and cram so much story in to two hours of screen time, I think they did an overall good job of condensing events and putting across broad points in concise moments.
Granted, Young Guns should probably win an award for the most occurrences of dramatic gun-cocking in a western…ever, but for a young guy like me, I thought it was pretty darn slick; the scene of taking turns cocking their guns and then posing in the barn before storming out is probably a highpoint in western cheese, but man did I think that was cool. And just as well, there are plenty of genuinely quality scenes.
Billy and the guys all camped out and deciding what they were going to do next is a generally true event. Some decided to ride away, some decided to stay, with Billy leading the contingent choosing to remain. Likewise, although the time is sped along, Frank Coe tells a story of Tunstall taking Billy to town and buying him a new suit and guns and gunbelt and how happy Billy was about it. He said it was the first time anyone had done anything like that for him, so those little touches in the movie are a real plus.
Of course the not-so-subtle moments are pretty great, too, like the scene with Morton and Baker and McCloskey. No one alive knows for sure what happened on that backtrail to Lincoln, but this scene is a great depiction of what most likely occurred.
I would really love to see Billy’s life played out over the course of a three or four part series of movies, or even TV movies, but in the meantime, Young Guns is still a pretty fun way to take in a visualized depiction, in spite of some cheese.
Handy With A Gun...! 