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James Coburn,
James Coburn,
Kris Kristofferson,
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Sam Peckinpah,
Sam Peckinpah,
Sam Peckinpah
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: Warner Home Video
: Action, Classic Action/Adventure, Westerns
: English, French
: English, Spanish, French, Sp
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A former friend betrays a legendary outlaw in Sam Peckinpah's final Western. Holed up in Fort Sumner with his gang between cattle rustlings, Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson) ignores the advice of comrade-turned-lawman Pat Garrett (James Coburn) to escape to Mexico, and he winds up in jail in Lincoln, New Mexico. After Billy theatrically escapes, inspiring enigmatic Lincoln resident Alias (Bob Dylan) to join him, the governor (Jason Robards Jr.) and cattle baron Chisum (Barry Sullivan) requisition Garrett to form a posse and hunt him down. Rather than flee to Mexico when he can, Billy heads back to Fort Sumner, meeting his final destiny at the hands of his friend Pat, who, two decades later, is forced to face the consequences of his own Faustian pact with progress. With a script by Rudolph Wurlitzer, Peckinpah uses the historical basis of Billy's death to eulogize the West dreamily yet violently as it is desecrated by corrupt capitalists. Both Pat and Billy know that their time is passing, as surely as Garrett's posse knows that they are participating in a legend. Using familiar Western players like Slim Pickens and Katy Jurado, Peckinpah underscores the West's existence as a media myth, and he even appears himself as a coffin maker. Just as the bloodletting of Peckinpah's earlier The Wild Bunch (1969) invoked the Vietnam War, the casting of Kristofferson and Dylan alluded to the chaotic late '60s/early '70s present; the counterculture has little place in a corporate future. Also like The Wild Bunch, Pat Garrett was truncated by its studio; the cuts did nothing to help its box office. Key scenes, particularly the framing story of Garrett's fate, have since been restored to the home-video version. In this director's cut, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid stands as one of Peckinpah's most beautiful and complex films, killing the Western myth even as he salutes it. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
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| Bob Dylan's a weasel!
by toddandsteph
October 26, 2006 - 9:34 PM PDT
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2 out of 2 members found this review helpful
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| Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1988 Turner Preview version): Speaking of rad movies, this one is red and rad! And holy supporting cast: Slim freakin Pickens almost steals the show from a cast that includes not only Harry Dean Stanton but James Coburn, Kris Kristofferson, and John Beck! Oh, and to chime in on the ongoing debate about Bob Dylan in this flick. His musical contributions to this flick seem out-of-place and forced, depleting the sharp atmosphere that Peckinpah has in his best flicks. His acting isn't bad, and the character as a whole was an okay idea, but there was no way in hell I'd ever take his character in a dangerous way, and whoever wrote lines like "What's your name?" "That's a good question" deserves to get twenty dimes-by-shotgun through the back. The plot follows familar Peckinpah themes, but the climax is far more poignant than anything I've seen in a Peckinpah movie yet. It's really a crime that Coburn isn't more acknowledged for his part in this film. He just radiates conflict and determination without having to chew scenery or spew out exposition. You can just see it in his weary face, and you almost don't feel bad at the end when he does what he has to do. Kristofferson isn't bad either. I had no idea that he'd been in that many Westerns (are there any beside this and Heaven's Gate?). All in all, an absolutely awesome Peckinpah contribution to cinema. I still don't prefer it over Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia or The Wild Bunch, but it does have the 20 dimes scene, and that's reason enough to see it. **** out've **** |
| The one to watch
by ESullivan
February 6, 2006 - 5:19 PM PST
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5 out of 5 members found this review helpful
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Here's a fascinating Peckinpah film that I guess was considered DOA when released. Having seen this cut, I'm sure I know what they were talking about: it's messy, there's little dramatic tension to speak of, and it's very violent in that anarchic way that Peckinpah had total cinematic monopoly on. It's also thick with Peckinpah fetishes, such as his obession with turning a scene on it's ear through punchy editing style. How about using Bob Dylan as the soundtrack to a gunfight? How well does that diffuse the tension? Almost completely. Which, to tell you the truth, I enjoyed. "PG&BtK" is meditative, elegiac and surprising lacking in cynicism. It really is a gentle film at heart. As for the ending... if there is one thing I do like better about the '05 edition, it the deletion of a superfluous epilogue intended, I suppose, to satisfy those who found the film anticlimactic.
It is. That's the point.
That said, a note about the "special edition" DVD. There are two cuts of the film, the 1988 cut shown on Turner television that replaces raw deleted scenes directly into the film, and the 2005 cut that replaces these scenes while deleting others, changing music cues, and screwing around with Peckinpah's editing. Supposedly their reasoning for doing this was to correct the "pacing", which Peckinpah never had a chance to do. The result is an even bigger mess. Thematic focus goes totally out the window in favor of smoother "flow" for the ADD-addled audience member. And the video transfer has had far too much digital grain removal to make it appear sharp and smooth while, I can guarantee you, no Peckinpah film was ever intended to look that way - much less with the color saturation punched up the way it is. The Turner '88 cut looks far more natural and "filmlike", besides being the superior version.
If you want to experience this film for the first time, better to go for the sloppy '88 version on Disc Two than the over-compensated '05 masturbation edition on Disc One. |
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