Regulators, ride out (Young Guns (DVD))

Member Name: hobo

Product:	Young Guns (DVD)
Date:	22/03/01 (135 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Bang, Bang you're dead

Disadvantages: Strange native american psychodelic drugs sequence which appears in the middle of the film.

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 for this film.
The plot is fairly straight forward. Old dude who takes in troubled teenage boys gets wasted by local sheriff. Troubled teenage boys go out for revenge. Into that is weaved a whole string of subplots. The power struggle within the group - between the gun ho exuberence of Emilio Esterves and the controlled and just fury of Charlie Sheen, a love story between one of the lads and the chinese wife of the sheriff and illicit drug use as condoned by native american indians.
The cast is also fairly straight forward. The actors are strictly brat pack, Sheen, Esteves etc. The troubled teens they play are divided along the usual action gang formula. There is a power struggle between two guys who want to lead, there is one guy who is good with a rifle, one who is good with knives, one who is best with a pistol etc etc, yawn.
I think the thing about young guns is that although it is formulaic and predictable and at the end of the day pretty dumb, it got to me when I was young. It got inside my head in my formative years and now I find it very hard to hate it. This movie, like cigarettes and booze, is insidious. While I wasn't watching it crept into my life and became an important part of the person I am today.

Summary: