Young Guns (1988)

Young Guns. In the beginning, the first thing i noticed was the sound track. The thought that popped into my head was, "wait, am i watching a western, or 'Top Gun'?"

Despite the incredibly out of place music, the movie was pretty decent. I wasn't extremely impressed, or extremely disgusted by it. The plot was straight forward yet interesting, following a group of six wayward young men avenging the death of John Tunstall (Terrance Stamp), a very educated man from London and cattle rancher who took them in after they had trouble with the law. He gives the boys an education, job, and place to live so they are not living on the street. Tunstall's rival, Murphy (Jack Palance), sends men to kill Tunstall because of their intense competition. The six young men, played by various well-known and not so well-known actors, (including Emilio Estevez ("and i was like... EMELIO!") and Charlie Sheen, who i am not a huge fan of in this kind of movie) get deputized and set off with warrants to arrest Murphy's men, but instead of the tedious process of bringing them in and having a legal trial and finally getting arrested, Billy the Kid decides to take the law into his own hands and just kill Murphy's men instead, which works pretty well. Except for the part where they get chased by mercenaries hired by Murphy and soldiers of the United States.

Billy the Kid, (played by Emilio Estevez) is made into an overnight legend, describing him as a left handed ladies' man, and he is right handed and not exactly great with the ladies. But this works to his advantage, as he finds a mercenary of Murphy's in a bar talking about how he's going to kill Billy the Kid, and Billy takes this advantage to empty the mercenary's gun and promptly splatter his blood all over the bar wall. At least he doesn't waste time. Billy manages to kill quite a few men, 5 or 6 by most way through the movie, but Billy decides he'll call it 10 even to make his reputation grow. He often does it in quick, gruesome ways, such as when he finds out one of his men is planning an ambush, he puts a bullet through his forehead and pushes him into a river. The group of men follow Billy's lead, mostly because they're all wanted too so they have to stick it out as a group of outlaws.

The movie moved quickly, which i like, especially in westerns, (ugh i hate really slow dramatic western movies) and was enjoyable to watch. The acting was done well, but nothing special, and the directing style was different, very modern for western movies, which was really interesting. I enjoyed the movie overall, but it's not going on my all-time favorites list. I only had two big problems with the movie, though: the out of place rock music, and the fact that Charlie Sheen was in it. He's a good actor, but not so much in this type of movie. He should definitely keep his acting horizons narrow. Two and a Half Men and Hane's commercials are definitely enough Charlie Sheen for me.

Overall Rating: 5.9 out of 10.0

Categories: "Pretty Good but Not Great" "Don't Really Have to Think About It"