Young Guns (DVD)

I love this film! The wild west is a period of history which really fascinates me and Billy the Kid in particular is an outlaw of such fame; I find him a very intriguing character. The version of the Kid's life as told in Young Guns (1988) may not completely accurate, indeed there is still some contraversy as to whether Pat Garrett really did shoot and kill Billy or whether, as explored in the sequel, Young Guns 2, Garrett allowed the Kid to escape and he later re-emerged as Brushy Bill Roberts. But whatever the factual history, this film really captures the danger of the wild west and helps to keep Billy the Kid immortalised for more recent ...  Read the complete review

Young Guns is the 1988 film with an all star brat pack cast that tells the story of the emergence of Billy the Kid and the regulators he reputedly rode with. The film is one of the more entertaining modern Westerns, and remains set as one of the better known of the modern era. The Plot New Mexico, 1878. Landowner John Tunstall takes in tearaway youths and educates them in return for them working for him in keeping his land and cattle safe and looked after. He calls them his regulators. Rival landowner Lawrence Murphy wants Tunstall's land and will do anything to get it. When Murphy has Tunstall murdered, the Regulators are determined to bring him to ...  Read the complete review

In the year 1878, landowner John Turnstall is at logger heads with rival landowner Lawrence Murphy as they vie for business in Lincoln County, New Mexico. Under his supervision, a band of tearaways, including poetic "Doc" Scurlock, level-headed Richard Brewer, knife man Chavez and new kid, gun wielding William H. Bonney, AKA Billy the Kid, help look after his business and land as "regulators". After returning to their ranch after a night of celebration with all the other towns folk, Turnstall is ambushed and murdered by a band of Murphy's men. Determined to bring Murphy and his men to justice, the band of regulators get themselves deputized ...  Read the complete review

What a blast from the past this is. Young Guns came out twenty years ago and I remember seeing it on Video - something that, calculating back, I shouldn't legally have been allowed to do. Oops. Anyway, it tells the story of Billy The Kid (although it is fictionalised I think) and his gang (which he steals from the dead leader) during a war in New Mexico. The become infamous, as famous bandits usually do, and soon even the United States Army are looking to take them out of the equation. In some places it plays like a historical version of the A Team, but don't let that put you off. It is a great, if somewhat dated movie, and it is fun to play "Where is he ...  Read the complete review

There are some films that you see as a kid and fall in love with. You can go back to them years later and see they have virtually no merit at all, but deep down, you still have feelings for them. I'm not sure if Young Guns falls into this category. I certainly haven't enjoyed it as much when i've watched it recently. Maybe I'm getting old and jaded. Maybe my pallet has matured so far as westerns are concerned. Maybe I just don't have a nine year olds passion for random gunfire anymore. Whatever the reason Young Guns doesn't seem as good as it once did. But somewhere hidden at the back of my mind there is still a little light burning ...  Read the complete review