Young Guns - Special Edition
Artisan Home Entertainment   -   1988   -   102 minutes

Reviewed by Thor van Lingen

Review Date: April 27, 2003

FOR STARTERS

PHOTO GALLERY The Kid likes these odds.

In the category of �I haven�t seen that one in a while� comes a fun movie from a series of two films that brought a little bit of the old west to the late 1980s and early 1990s. Taking us back to 1878 Lincoln County, Young Guns tells the story of Billy the Kid (Emilio Estevez) and his trials and tribulations in 19th century New Mexico. Billy, along with 5 other young men who get into a fair amount of trouble, are taken in by the stern but caring John Tunstall (Terence Stamp), a successful local cattle rancher. After this friend and father figure is mercilessly gunned down by vicious competitor L.G. Murphy (Jack Palance) over a pending government beef contract, the boys get secretly deputized by a sympathetic judge and set out to arrest the law-breakers in question.

Originally deputized to serve 11 warrants and expose the ring, 20-year-old Billy shows us early that he has no intention of letting the offenders off that easily. He kills one, then two, and before long the papers start announcing that the Kid has gone on the warpath. Soon wanted by the legitimate law, as well as those outside the law, it very quickly becomes 6 against the world. Well, you better make that 5, because Charlie Sheen�s character Richard Brewer gets an early exit, too. This small band of regulators is torn between avenging the death of their role model and worrying about joining him. It seems that no matter which way the group heads there is certain danger. They are faced with unfriendly Indians in one direction, legitimate law-types in another direction, and bounty hunters from everywhere. This little conundrum makes for one of the more interesting set of scenes in the movie: the peyote scene and the hallucination scene that follows.

A film that gathered 6 of the most promising young actors at the time, Young Guns had its fair share of star talent. One of the first of only a handful of movies that brothers Sheen and Estevez worked on together as actors, this film also includes Lou Diamond Phillips as the knife-throwing Chavez, Kiefer Sutherland as the poetic romantic 'Doc' Scurlock, Dermot Mulroney as the chew-spitting Dirty Steve, and Casey Siemaszko as the pugilist Charley Bowdre, adding to the circle to make for a diverse cast that has something for everyone. They all play very well off one another, and the included featurette even speaks to the fact that the group was very good at keeping each other�s egos in check.

Culminating in a grand shootout at the house of their sympathetic lawyer friend Alex McSween (Terry O'Quinn), Young Guns has all the bullets, horses, and tumbleweeds that one may have come to expect from a good action/western. A movie that also has undertones of loyalty and camaraderie, the English major in your life could probably bore you to tears with the symbolism and themes presented here. Since I have a math background and no innate need to bother you with such details, just believe me; they�re there. A movie that I thoroughly enjoyed 14 years ago, I still enjoyed it quite a bit this time around, and it certainly warrants a slot on the DVD shelf for me.

VIDEO

This all-new digitally remastered version is also served up in anamorphic widescreen, neither feature of which was present on the initial release of this movie on DVD. Gone is some of the grain and pop from the original transfer. There is still some distracting video noise in some of the brighter sky sequences, but overall the transfer is nicely improved. Blacks are relatively solid throughout, though the whites are far from Clorox clean. Skin tones are rich and realistic throughout, though the disc is still marred by some fairly murky shadowy sequences that may be more pronounced on this release. The other negative item of note is a PAINFUL layer switch that even the dullest tool in the shed will notice.

AUDIO

The 2.0 transfer of the last release (which was actually quite good) has been upgraded here to modern standards, including a DTS track that adds a little punch that may have been missing before. The center channel was the main attraction last time, and remains a healthy contributor with clear, clean voice reproduction. Its vibrant performance overall was a little bright at times, but nice in total. The front channels lent good musical support as well as adding a lot of off-screen effects and left to right transitions that better surround tracks showcase. The rears were a little subdued for the revamped format, but they were not a sore disappointment. Atmosphere effects were likewise subtle, but appropriate. The subwoofer chips in more this time around, with its dedicated channel pitching in for many of the gunfights and musical interludes.

SUPPLEMENTS

Gone is the infamous �crapper snapper� and the thirty-five cent packaging of the initial release. In its place we have a lovely new keep case and pop-open packaging, complete with low-budget bullet holes for effect. The text bios have also been terminated in favor of a 30-minute historical perspective on Billy The Kid that is pretty interesting, and sums up a lot of the things covered in the two movies with relatively good parallelism. The gruff old west history buffs dug up for this feature are rather intriguing characters themselves. The other two big additions are the commentary track by Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, and Casey Siemaszko and the �Gunning for the Facts� trivia track. For the commentary, the three actors mainly laugh about times they shared on the set. The trivia track is a pop-up-video style list of factoids that invade the screen every 15 seconds or so. There are some moderately interesting (and current) facts that come across.

THE BOTTOM LINE

An older title that got stiffed the first time around gets a respectable revisit, and an affordable re-release. If you like the movie enough to bring it out of the box every once in a while, pony-up and buy this title before it rides off into the sunset.