June 24, 1994

It always seems to surprise people when I admit stuff like this, but until now I had never seen WYATT EARP. And when I was getting ready to watch it and do this review I worried I was gonna get myself into trouble because it came out six months after TOMBSTONE, and lived and died in its comparisons to TOMBSTONE, so I know everyone in the comments is gonna want to talk about that. And the thing is I still haven’t seen TOMBSTONE either. Yeah, I know. I’ll get around to it.

Initially I thought I should do that first, but then I realized it was a unique opportunity to be the one guy watching WYATT EARP on its 30th anniversary with zero instinct to compare and contrast to TOMBSTONE. I have been preparing three decades to be this specific guy.

In this fairly pretentious prequel to SUNSET, Kevin Costner stars as the titular real life lawman (1848-1929), reuniting with his SILVERADO director Lawrence Kasdan, who shares a writing credit with Dan Gordon (GOTCHA!, PASSENGER 57, RAMBO: LAST BLOOD, Highlander: The Series pilot). It’s a 3 hour and 10 minute fictionalized chronicle of Earp from childhood to retirement, focusing on his love for and influence on his brothers Virgil (Michael Madsen, THELMA & LOUISE), Morgan (Linden Ashby, MORTAL KOMBAT) and James (David Andrews, CHERRY 2000), who all end up policing together. He also befriends Bat Masterson (Tom Sizemore, STRIKING DISTANCE) who introduces him to his brother Ed (Bill Pullman, A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN), who becomes a contrast to Earp by trying to be a good cop.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the movie is looking at Earp skeptically some of the time. As a kid he runs around playing war, making gunshot sounds, pointing his gun up at the moon. Would he really shoot an unarmed moon? As an adult he gets his first gun and points it up at fireworks. He gets mad at Deputy Ed for de-escalating a situation, then gets fired himself for too many excessive force complaints. But he seems to be vindicated when Ed is killed in his absence and the town begs for him to come back. It’s the wild west out here, no room for morals I guess.

But he wasn’t always like that. He used to be a dweeb. As a teenager (played by Ian Bohen, later in WIND RIVER and SICARIO: DAY OF THE SOLDADO) he sees somebody get shot in a duel (good job making that part nasty, Kasdan) and it makes him puke. While working as a referee he pisses off a fighter (Martin Kove, THE KARATE KID, RAMBO: FIRST BLOOD PART II, STEELE JUSTICE) who then hears a rumor Earp wants to fight and comes gunning for him. Wyatt tries to back out but then defeats (kills?) him by suddenly throwing a pool ball at him real hard. Kind of a punk move even though it comes across as some real Gino Felino shit.

His life is looking good when he marries his childhood sweetheart (Annabeth Gish, MYSTIC PIZZA), but you know how the typhoid fever is. So he becomes a widower, sets his house on fire and leaves town to go through a dark period. He becomes an itinerant drunk, gets arrested for grand theft horse, the punishment is death but his dad (Gene Hackman! From UNFORGIVEN!) bails him out and lets him escape on the condition that he leave Arkansas forever and never show his pathetic scumbag loser face again. This is an interesting backstory for a cop who will, of course, never show a moment’s awareness that he’s just going around murdering dudes who maybe could’ve turned their lives around if given a second chance like he was. I guess they should’ve thought of having dads with connections to do that for them. Oh well.

I do like the detail that after he starts a new life he gets sober and people keep trying to buy him rounds and getting offended when he doesn’t drink them.

The score by James Newton Howard (MARKED FOR DEATH) is one of those ones that tells you “Guys! We’re going on an adventure! Old west style!,” but I’m not sure the movie got the memo. Still, it is a movie of impressive scale, and I really like how Kasdan illustrates Earp’s entry into a career as a trapper. There’s a huge herd of buffalo (early CG?) and then suddenly a mountain of buffalo skins and separate mountain of their bones. His beginnings as a marshal don’t require that kind of scope, more of an intimate action movie scenario, almost like a scene out of a LETHAL WEAPON. He hears gunshots outside one day and goes out to see what’s going on, the marshals don’t really want to deal with this guy they have cornered so they pin a star on Earp, he goes through a door and comes out dragging the suspect. And Wyatt’s still barefoot. Kind of a John McClane, kind of a Dirty Harry eating a hot dog.

When he works in Dodge City his big innovation is enforcing the gun laws. His salary is low but he makes bank by being paid per arrest. So there’s something for all points on the political spectrum to object to.

When Dennis Quaid (JAWS 3-D) shows up late in the movie as flamboyant southern shooting-people aficionado Doc Holliday I think I would sense he was supposed to be a big deal even if I didn’t know the name from cultural osmosis jones. Quaid is pretty enjoyable, pretty over-the-top, doing more business than he usually needs to. Other familiar faces that show up: Isabella Rossellini (DEATH BECOMES HER), JoBeth Williams (POLTERGEIST), Adam Baldwin (FULL METAL JACKET), Lewis Smith (THE HEAVENLY KID), Betty Buckley (CARRIE), Jim Caviezel in his first movie, Tea Leoni (“Racine 1st Base,” A LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN), John Doe (ROAD HOUSE), Jeff Fahey (THE LAWNMOWER MAN) and apparently Mackenzie Astin (GARBAGE PAIL KIDS: THE MOVIE), but I don’t remember seeing him.

The wives of the brothers are important in that they very reasonably don’t want to keep uprooting their lives to follow wherever Wyatt wants to take his law enforcement career. But when they try to have a word with him about it he doesn’t take it well. It’s pretty cool to see Catherine O’Hara (AFTER HOURS) as Virgil’s lady, who really does not like Wyatt. Wyatt’s long time partner Matty (Mare Winningham, MIRACLE MILE) is the most prominent female character but unfortunately her part is mainly being angry at him and then repeatedly attempting suicide after he starts seeing new-in-town Josie (Joanna Going in her first movie, long before HOME ALONE 4). The movie doesn’t shame Mattie for being a prostitute but doesn’t give us many reasons to like her other than that she’s treated so badly by this fucko.

Josie is a little more appealing, especially since she (insincerely) disses Wyatt on their first couple encounters. It is kind of funny how Wyatt steals her from her fiance Johnny Behan (Mark Harmon, SUMMER SCHOOL), a law enforcement rival who seems to be different from Wyatt because he’s less hardcore but actually because he’s super corrupt and easy on the criminals who he’s in business with. There’s a scene where he comes to arrest Wyatt for shooting some guys, and it’s fucked up because you’re supposed to be mad about it even though yes, he should be fucking arrested for shooting some guys. Anyway, it’s still funny that while Johnny’s trying to get him to come with him his ex-fiance who he blew it with by showing her nude photos around comes over and hugs Wyatt right in front of him.

I wouldn’t say I disliked WYATT EARP. It’s a well made movie, its seriousness and indulgence at least prevent it from feeling generic, and there’s some excitement here and there. But overall it is not an exciting movie. I think the problem is that most people saw it after TOMBSTONE and couldn’t help but compare them, but since I’m watching it without having seen TOMBSTONE I don’t know why I’m supposed to give a shit about Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday and whoever.

I think in a sense this is as much a nostalgia piece as MAVERICK was. It’s based on a real guy instead of a TV show, but many boomers probly knew about him from watching TV shows like The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, Tombstone Territory, Broken Arrow, Johnny Ringo or Gunsmoke, or movies like MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, GUNFIGHT AT THE O.K. CORRAL or HOUR OF THE GUN. Something instilled in them that fascination with the legends of real life gunmen and outlaws, but I just didn’t grow up with anything like that. I don’t remember my dad ever caring about westerns, maybe because he was too poor to have a TV when he was a kid. So I wasn’t really interested in them until I got into Clint movies in my late teens, and I didn’t have a reference for Wyatt Earp, so this really wasn’t made for me. Kasdan begins with the assumption that I find it interesting that there was once this guy who famously shot up some other guys, and does not make an argument for why I should find that interesting.

My favorite western is ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST, but most of the other ones I like are shorter and tighter, and they’re usually building tensions around a specific goal or conflict. Here we have a pretty muddy real life conflict but also decades leading up to it, with different towns and jobs and sets of characters. So it really functions less as a western than as a biopic. In fact it opens showing Earp from the back, sitting down in an empty saloon with a hot cup of coffee, his brothers come tell him the guys they’re looking for are at the O.K. Corral, and then it flashes back to tell the story of his life leading up to then. You’re gonna have to give him a moment, son. Wyatt Earp has to think about his entire life before he has a shootout at the O.K. Corral. And then it’s here is this famous guy, and some of the other famous guys he encountered, here’s him at different ages, here are some of the famous incidents, and my take on what drives him. I mean obviously that’s what Kasdan and/or Costner were interested in, I can’t fault them for going after it. But I don’t really know how to share their interest.

At the box office, WYATT EARP couldn’t compete with the lion, the bus or the wolf, let alone TOMBSTONE. It didn’t make back its budget in theaters, and didn’t get great reviews. But if it’s thought of as a debacle I didn’t realize that. I kinda think people will be disappointed in me for being luke warm on this. If that’s you, I look forward to hearing what you like about it.