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Young Guns (1988) More at IMDbPro »

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94 comments in total

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18 out of 19 people found the following comment useful :-
Brat Pack Go West, 2 June 2006

Author: no-skyline from Rochester, England

Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Emilo Estevez and Lou Diamond Phillips star in this light weight western, re-telling of the Billy The Kid story. This movie plays fast and loose with history and is in not particularly accurate about most details but as an enjoyable western adventure it succeeds. The movies style harks back to the old days of the western adventure such as Rio Bravo etc and while nowhere near it in terms of class it is a worthwhile watch. Jack Palance makes a fantastic bad guy and Terranc Stamp puts in a good performance as the gangs father figure. Performances of the brat pack are pretty good and I really enjoyed Estevez's portrayal of the kid. If you like westerns and enjoyed modern versions such as Tombstone you'll enjoy this movie.

7/10 - Not exactly Unforgiven or Rio Bravo but still a worthwhile watch for any western fan.

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18 out of 24 people found the following comment useful :-
Lots of great stars = entertaining movie, 11 July 2002

Author: Agent10 from Tucson, AZ

With a brilliant collection of characters, this movie proved to be one of the more entertaining modern day westerns. Charlie Sheen, Keifer Sutherland, Emilio Estevez, Lou Diamond Phillips and the other guys all shined in this movie, making it memorable in a landscape of a lost art form. Sure, some movies have tried to equal this film's motif (American Outlaws, Texas Rangers, Ride With the Devil, etc.) but all have failed in the process. Coupled with some good shoot-out scenes, this proved to be a rather entertaining movie.

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11 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
Siemaszko, Estevez and Phillips make this show., 22 June 2001
Author: Thornfield2 from West Valley

With a cast of six great actors (especially the three mentioned up above) you know you can't go wrong. Estevez was powerful and a dead ringer for Billy the Kid. He was fast, furious and he takes you on a wild ride from the moment he hits the screen (very beginning). His character didn't really sit still for a second and his sharp wit and devilish humor are masked well underneath his thirst for revenge and blood. I also believe that he had a need for power and this was entwined well with the other facets of the character. Phillps was truly incredible as the spiritual leader of the team, who had a serious bone to pick. I really saw true talent being performed in the scenes where he painted his face black and guides the others in a spiritual journey. He also especially eminates this talent at the end where he talks about the attack on his family. However, I think the finest performance of the pack goes to Casey Siemaszko's Charlie Bowdre. Almost an innocent, laid back character in the beginning, you see each of his layers peal away until you see an amazing sequence of emotions. Ranging from a good humored farm hand, to a lonely vigilante, to a newly wed to a soldier of justice and then finally in the end giving everything he has to obtain some justice. Amazing. It's a shame he's not more recognized in the eyes of Hollywood today. 8.5 out of 10.

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8 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
A pack of young stars take on the western legend known as Billy the Kid., 6 July 2007

Author: Mickey-2 from Front Royal, VA

The year is 1870 and the place is Lincoln County in New Mexico territory. A young William H. Bonney is rescued from a possible hanging by John Tunstall, who befriends the youth and makes him part of the family of young guns known as Regulators. This puts Billy in the midst of a territorial dispute between Tunstall and the Santa Fe Ring, led by Lawrence G. Murphy, villainously portrayed by Jack Palance. Another western legend, Pat Garrett, is played by Patrick Wayne, the son, of course, of John Wayne.

After the killing of Tunstall by Murphy's henchmen, the Regulators and Billy hit on all cylinders in extracting revenge for the slaughter of their benefactor. The Regulators are branded as outlaws, and the "legal forces" of Murphy attempt to pare them down to nothing. This leads to a final shootout on the streets of Lincoln, and very few of the original Regulators escape, which leads to the sequel of "Young Guns," appropriately called "Young Guns II." The cast of young and upcoming Hollywood stars include Emilio Estevez as Billy, Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen, Lou Diamond Phillips, Casey Siemaszko, and Dermot Mulroney.

One final note: the DVD includes as part of its special features section a Trivia Track, which flashes western facts and information about the stars or the characters being portrayed on screen without detracting from the viewing of the film. This is worth seeing and owning.

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4 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
That Guys Killed More People Than Smallpox!, 29 January 2006

Author: verbusen from Fahaheel, Kuwait

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Yes, you can hear classic lines like the one of the guy who's killed more than smallpox, and my favorite of the whole movie when Billy goes "Hey Colonel Sh**head, ...." that one still cracks me up to no end, if you watch Young Guns! I really dug this flick when it came out on video, and I need to plug it good here for two reasons. First, my parents claim I was playmates with the Sheen (Estevez) boys, because I grew up in Greenwich Village and my parents were running around in the same artsy crowd with Martin Sheen. So I always give those two probably much more credit then they deserve. Second, I made some serious jack playing the end scene to middle aged guys with money to burn on a new thing called Dolby Surround THX in the late 80's to early 90's. The soundtrack if played on a home theater system was so highly exaggerated that you'd have to be deaf not to hear the ricochet's going from front to back! The movie is very light on dead spots. It's made for the teens and attention span was a real factor in its making. There's action just to kill time in this flick and it works, Emilio's snappy dialog and crazy antics make it really interesting, and I also thought Casey had some bits that almost stole the movie for him. Brian Keith, Terrence Stamp, and the great Jack Palance add some legitimacy to also bring it up a notch. I just watched this flick in full on cable at my current job (the "decent" surround systems don't cost $4,000+ anymore so no more commission salesman job for guys like me, I've got a "real" job now, lol), and it brought a tingle up my spine to see that ending again as I remembered every line that was being said. Cool flick for Young Guns like I used to be!

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5 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Never intended to be a rival to Leone, Young Guns is a fun ride with likable performances., 19 June 2008

Author: axlrhodes from United Kingdom

Its easy to pass off Young Guns as an eager to please piece of throwaway rock video style entertainment aimed at the younger demographic but that would be unfair.The thing is,it knows what it wants to be and it does it very well.The young cast all perform with great fun and energy thus enriching the film immeasurably.They are well supported by Jack Palance and Terrence Stamp who bring weight to proceedings, particularly Palance who seems to revel in his hammy role.Emilio Estevez's interpretation of Billy The Kid is a great watch too,his realisation of the character may be a million miles from the reality but when there's this much fun being had on screen,who cares!? The music in the film is a little jarring in places,electric guitars screaming Van Halen style over a western horse chase feel very much out of place but its never distracting enough to take you out of the fun. So in summary Young Guns is a western that wants to entertain you and I say it succeeds well.It was never intended to be a Sergio Leone classic western,just a fun ride with characters you can root for.On that level,it is a triumph.

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9 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Decent Western, 27 March 2003

Author: Idocamstuf from Greenville, NY

There are plenty of other great, better westerns out there such as: Tombstone and Butch Cassidy, but this one isn't bad. It has a good cast, decent action, and decent scenery. I like most westerns, so I decided to> check this one out, and I wasn't disappointed. If you like westerns and are not too picky, you'll enjoy this one. 6.4 out of 10 sounds about right.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
"Regulators, Saddle Up", 5 August 2008

Author: bkoganbing from Buffalo, New York

This retelling of the Billy the Kid saga here and in the succeeding film, Young Guns II, is yet another fictionalized account of the doings in Lincoln County, New Mexico 1878-1879. One fine day we may get an accurate picture of the events.

Here though several young actors some of whom were labeled the Brat Pack and who were coming up roughly around the same time in the Middle Eighties got an opportunity to play some real life western characters. The names of the characters these guys play are real even though the story is highly fictionalized to the extent that not all of them died during the period both films show.

One reason I do like Young Guns is that it does show what is probably the most realistic portrayal of Billy the Kid. Forget Robert Taylor, Johnny Mack Brown, Paul Newman, when you see Emilio Estevez on the screen you are seeing the real Billy, basically a punk who was skilled enough to back up his brag.

Estevez rides with Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, Casey Siemaszko, and brother Charlie Sheen. They are the 'regulators' who ride for John Tunstall the British rancher played here by Terrence Stamp.

It was the relationship between Tunstall and his young regulators that villain L.G. Murphy (Jack Palance) touches on. It's certainly led to speculation that these guys were some kind of a gay harem for Stamp. I certainly am not going to comment one way or the other because we just don't know. What's more cause for the animosity is that old country resentment of the English rulers.

What Young Guns essentially does is take the plot of the John Wayne classic Chisum and tell it from the Tunstall/Regulators point of view. Chisum himself is eliminated from the story, though he appears in Young Guns, II played briefly by James Coburn. So if you've seen that, you know what happens.

The young guys are great and Stamp and Palance provide a good pair of antagonists. Brian Keith is around for a memorable performance as Buckshot Roberts, a well known bounty hunter of the period.

Young Guns is a well done western with good editing at a pace that never drags. It's a modern classic not to be missed.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
History is shot down once again, 3 May 2006

Author: jhammond59 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I was somewhat surprised to see the Lincoln County War portrayed as accurately as it was, even though there were a number of historical inaccuracies. Since I'm doing extensive research on the Lincoln County War for a novel about same, I expected to gag often at historical lapses, but the screenplay by John Fusco stays reasonably close to the historical record. Of course the historical record has produced many conflicting interpretations as I soon discovered.

The choice to make Billy a psychopathic killer, whether by Emilio Estevez's interpretation or the director's is not well supported by historical facts, but Emilio's insane giggle after each killing strongly suggests it.

In the context of the times, within a lawless county that at the time was as large as Connecticutt, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined, men often settled things with a gun and violence, and Billy was definitely a product of those times.

One glaring mistake, and one made often in Billy the Kid movies was John Tunstall's real age, which was 24, not 55 as Terrence Stamp (I'm being charitable) appears to be in the film. While Billy was loyal to the man that gave him honest work, I don't think he'd be perceived as a father figure. Nonetheless, the scene at Tunstall's home where he asks Billy to read for him did portray the fact he was quite literate as his letters to Gov. Wallace prove.

The scene where Billy kills Henry Hill in the outhouse is pure fabrication. There was a Tom Hill that rode with Jessie Evans, but he was killed later by an Cherokee Indian when Tom and Jessie tried to rob a sheep drover, John Wagner. Legend did have Billy responsible, but most accounts tagged the notorious Jessie Evans for that mishap.

The Five Day Battle, one of the most famous in the west, was done reasonable well. Col Dudley did get involved in the fray, and brought a six pounder howitzer and a Gatling Gun with him. His intent, while he denied it was to "even the odds", which meant to give the Murphy-Dolan gang a 2 to 1 advantage. However, the gun was NOT used to kill McSween, but to intimidate McSween's men housed in two other buildings in Lincoln.

McSween was killed trying to escape the conflagration, but had waited too long after Billy led a diversion to draw their fire. Many of the soldiers were shown also firing at the McSween home, but little evidence supports that possibility. However, Dudley's positioning of his men alongside Dolan's made it impossible for McSweens's men to return fire for fear of hitting a soldier that would have resulted in Dudley firing his cannon and Gatling Gun.

Also, on this point, the soldiers of Fort Stanton would have been hard pressed not to get involved with all the guns going off. These were battle tested veterans, many of whom knew Murphy and Dolan as they both were mustered out at Fort Stanton, and Murphy had a store at the fort years earlier and no doubt got drunk with some of them.

The character of L. G. Murphy was perfectly cast with Jack Palance. You never had any doubt this was a bad dude. However, at the time of the battle, Murphy suffered from Cancer of the bowels, and was singlehandedly drinking up his saloon's profits. Dolan was by then the man in charge, and an even nastier man than his ex-boss.

The one point of departure that had me completely aghast was the needless peyote scene. Unless, true to the times, we had to have a "drug scene", where were they going with this? Others have commented on the music, and I must say, when playing the DVD in its intro mode, the replaying of that dreadful song is enough to make one hit the mute button. One of the extras that I appreciated is a documentary of Billy the Kid, which does correct some of the deviations in the movie.

One place they did get things right was in the characterization of Buckshot Roberts by the late Brian Keith, one of my favorites. Buckshot got his name from a load of same that shattered his shoulder making it impossible for him to raise his rifle above his waist and Keith mimicked that perfectly.

There were other inaccuracies to be sure, but I have covered the most glaring. And of course most of you are not watching this as western history, I trust. Faults aside, this is still one of the most realistic and accurate portraits of the 1870's in New Mexico.

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3 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
did you guy see the size o that chicken, 19 November 2005

Author: (backdrop@zoomshare.com) from United Kingdom

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I really wanted to see this movie for a long time, I waited so long, but the wait was definitely worth it. My dad had told me that this was one of his favourite films in the eighties, and I can see why. The cast for this film was fantastic, I've never seen Keifer Sutherland play a part like this before, Charlie Sheen and his brother once again play brilliant performances. The other actors Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermont Mulroney and Casey Siemaszko were all fantastic, I had never seen any of them in a movie before, but their characters were thoroughly enjoyable, especially dirty Steve, "did you guys see the size o that chicken?"

If you haven't yet see the film, than i suggest you do, even though the film is not 100% accurate, its fair to say that 90% is. My favourite part of the movie was when Billy the kid (Emilio) is talking to the loud Texan in the bar about killing the kid, and billy purposely gives himself away by whistling that sad tune, after taking his ammunition.

Don't just sit there, watch it!

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