111 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
111 lines
6.8 KiB
Plaintext
ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿
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³ WYATT EARP: Lawrence Kasdan, director. Dan Gordon & ³
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³ Lawrence Kasdan, screenplay. Starring Kevin Costner, ³
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³ Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, David Andrews, Linden ³
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³ Ashby, Jeff Fahey, Joanna Going, Mark Harmon, Michael ³
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³ Madsen, Catherine O'Hara, Bill Pullman, Isabella ³
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³ Rossellini, Tom Sizemore, JoBeth Williams, Mare ³
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³ Winningham, James Gammon, Rex Lynn, and Adam Baldwin. ³
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³ Warner Bros. Rated PG-13. ³
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ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ
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In a nutshell: much better than TOMBSTONE (1993), but not
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as good as DANCES WITH WOLVES (1990), and it's not as overly-
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romanticized as SILVERADO (1985), director/co-screenwriter
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Lawrence Kasdan's previous Western epic. Big-budget Westerns are
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back with a vengeance, it seems, leaving me to eat my own words
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from a review of 1993's HARD TARGET, starring Jean-Claude Van
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Damme. In that review, I stated the Western was dead, mainly to
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point out how director John Woo had styled TARGET after Sergio
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Leone's spaghetti Westerns from the '60s. Efforts like
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TOMBSTONE and BAD GIRLS notwithstanding, though, the Western is
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alive and doing well, thank you very much.
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That's not so say WYATT EARP isn't without flaws; at best,
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it's a barely-successful attempt to portray Earp the scalawag as
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realistically as possible. Sure, it's pompous and ponderous,
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over-long and over-stated, but it thankfully shows us the gray
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areas of the man himself, more apt to use his pistol as a billy
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club than try to talk you out of your guns. The film doesn't
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make the mistake of pumping Earp up into a heroic figure, posing
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against burning buildings and moonlit nights (… la Kurt Russell
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in TOMBSTONE). Wyatt Earp the scoundrel, the hero with feet of
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clay, a hard man doing a hard job keeping order in the Old West
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-- this film shows Earp warts and all. With so much focus paid
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to Earp, though, the deeds of his equally-rascally cohorts, Bat
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Masterson (Bill Pullman) and Doc Holliday (Dennis Quaid), are
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glossed over. In some respects. both Bat and Doc were more
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cold-blooded than Earp, but Doc's background is dismissed through
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a few lines of dialogue and Bat is sanitized beyond belief.
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The picture begins with Earp as a boy, wishing he could join
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the Army in the War Between the States, like his brothers James
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and Virgil. His father (Gene Hackman) catches him trying to run
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off and reminds him of his duty to farm and family. "Nothing
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counts so much as blood," the elder Earp proclaims over the
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dinner table. "All the rest are strangers." The children roll
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their eyes because they've heard it a thousand times before;
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about halfway through the film, though, the audience rolls its
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collective eyes, because screenwriters Dan Gordon and Kasdan hew
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rather slavishly to this subtext. Drawing this bond between the
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brothers at an early age is an easy out to explain why they stuck
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together so closely throughout their lives. Why they listened to
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Wyatt, went where he went, and invested in his ventures, is more
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ambiguous. The film portrays him as the dreamer, the one with
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big plans and the know-how to implement them, so we may conclude
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that this quality draws the brothers to Wyatt. In each town,
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Dodge City and Tombstone, the Earp spouses complain about the
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constant moving and the brothers' slavish devotion to Wyatt, and
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rightly so. By the time they reach Tombstone to settle down, you
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wonder just when the boys will get the itch to wander again. By
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movie's end, the question is answered permanently for at least
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one of the Earps: Never.
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Earp's portrait as a hard, unyielding hombre doesn't start
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early in life. His boyish enthusiasm transfers well to Costner's
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early scenes driving a wagon full of staples for railroad gangers
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and wooing his first wife in Missouri. It's great to see the
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normally terse Costner so full of life in the first part of WYATT
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EARP. The energy is short-lived, though, because soon after Earp
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loses his first wife to typhoid, he turns sullen, moody and with-
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drawn, playing to Costner's strength, and simultaneous weakness,
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as an actor. The screenplay seems tailored to his personality,
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warping the facts of Earp's life to the star's on-screen persona.
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I've long thought that Costner would serve as the perfect
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replacement for Gary Cooper in a big-budget remake of HIGH NOON
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(1952), should such a project take place. "Yup."
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Kasdan backs away from the romanticism of SILVERADO in this
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picture. Not only does he shed light on Earp's harsher person-
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ality, he also shows us the bleakness that filled many places in
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the Old West. Earp witnesses a shoot-out as a young boy, an ugly
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thing that lasts a second, consisting of missed shots at point-
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blank range and poorly-aimed shots that hit less than noble areas
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of the body. Earp's ambush-style method of relieving men of
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their guns doesn't set too well with the Masterson brothers when
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they are all made deputies, so the Mastersons lobby with the
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mayor to have him ousted. As a detective with the railroad, Earp
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meets Doc Holliday, who's already tubercular and painfully thin.
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Val Kilmer's portrayal of Holliday in TOMBSTONE, while the best
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performance of that picture and a startlingly vivid job at that,
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delineated a Holliday that was physically stronger than expected.
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Quaid has gone in the other extreme. He lost over 35 pounds for
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the role, walks unsteadily, and subjects his throat to a phlegmy
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voice that's hard to listen to. And yet, Quaid wrings every
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ounce of Southern-gentleman oiliness that he can from the role,
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the hint of steely menace still burning in his eyes. Doc
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Holliday again steals the show from Wyatt Earp, as both of these
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films have set a new standard for the character: a cough-ridden
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refined Southerner with a penchant for dark humor. I only wish
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Quaid had more on-screen time; surely he should receive a
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nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
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The vistas are wonderful and the camerawork is sharp, but
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the music is disappointingly wooden, much like Costner's
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performance in the latter half of the film. At 3+ hours, WYATT
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EARP is too long to sit through -- it would have worked better
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with half an hour or more cut out of it. And with a livelier
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Earp.
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RATING: $$
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