Lumsdal Good , But It Is Overrated By Some

Glimmerubro It is not deep, but it is fun to watch. It does have a bit more of an edge to it than other similar films.

StyleSk8r At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Mark Turner I've loved nearly every movie associated with writer/director Walter Hill. I still consider STREETS OF FIRE to be an undiscovered gem that needs revisited. It seems at some point Hollywood lost faith in Hill and began to provide him less opportunity to make a big budgeted film. The last to receive much ballyhoo was Sylvester Stallone's BULLET TO THE HEAD which didn't do as well as other films the star released but was still plenty entertaining. At least we have the opportunity to watch classic Hill films on disc. Last year saw the releases of the classic SOUTHERN COMFORT. Now we have the chance to see WILD BILL, one of his last forays into Hollywood film making.Based on the life of Wild Bill Hickok (Jeff Bridges) the story focuses on the last few weeks of his life while at the same time interjecting moments from his past. Rather than use the straight forward timeline to tell his story, Hill uses this to great effect here, showing us the end result of Hickok's life rather than simply glorifying him start to finish.Narrated by Hickok's friend Charley Prince (John Hurt) we start off with Hickok during his buffalo hunting days but quickly find him entering Deadwood, a gold mining town whose rough ways suit the famed lawman and gunslinger. Setting up shop at the Number 10 saloon he finds long time love Calamity Jane (Ellen Barkin) there among the rabble. Theirs is an unusual relationship, physical at times and more a matter of location than having the chance at long time matrimonial goals. Jane will always love Hickok but his lifestyle leaves him unwilling to settle down.At this point in time Hickok's legend precedes him wherever he goes. But his past is catching up to him. Dealing with pain and sight problems brought on by glaucoma, he can still shoot, play cards and carouse with the best of them though the end result is not what it once was. Hickok tends to drink away the pain he carries with him, both physical and mental from the long list of men he's killed and those he has wronged. Many of these are on view in several of the flashback sequences filmed in black and white to good effect.Into his life walks another memento of his past, a young man named Jack McCall (David Arquette), who intends to kill Hickok. Rather than shoot him dead, Hickok knocks the young man about and tells him he will allow him to continue living and to abandon his goal. It seems that McCall is set on doing the deed, a revenge for the abandonment of his mother Sarah Moore (Diane Lane) by Hickok years ago as well as the shooting of a man who would have been his stepfather.What Hill does here is deconstruct the hero we've grown to know throughout the years without painting a terrible picture of the man at the same time. Rather he is a product of the times he was alive in, a raw and untamed west that produced more killers turned lawmen than we can count. Hickok was good with a gun and suffered no fools. And yet his life was filled with minor slights that ended in gunplay. It is also a depiction of a man with health damage caused from frequent visitations to ladies of the night. This is not the squeaky clean image of the 50s and 60s but a realistic look at the man.Bridges turns in a well styled performance here, providing the swaggering bravado of the character when needed and showing those moments of inner turmoil with his acting skills rather than the spoken word. You can tell, for instance, that Hickok loves Jane but that his heart remains held by the now gone Sarah Moore. You can see in his face that while he is skilled at killing a man he takes no pleasure in it.The rest of the cast does an amazing job as well and a number of faces familiar to Hill fans pop up in various roles, among them Stoney Jackson and James Remar. Christina Applegate makes an appearance as do both Bruce Dern and Keith Carradine. But it is Bridges center stage that most will remember from this film.The late 90s had a number of old west movies made that should have revived the genre yet for some reason failed to do so. Wyatt Earp and DANCES WITH WOLVES with Kevin Costner, TOMBSTONE with Kurt Russell, UNFORGIVEN with Clint Eastwood and THE QUICK AND THE DEAD with Russell Crowe, Gene Hackman and Sharon Stone were all made during this time period. One can only hope that while it never kicked off at the time that perhaps one day the western will rise from the ashes and become popular again. Until then fans like myself will have to be content watching movies like these on disc.Twilight Time is releasing this one with their usual high quality crisp and clean picture. Extras are limited to an isolated music track and the original theatrical trailer. As is always the case the release is limited to just 3,000 copies so fans should pick one up before they're gone.

Mr-Fusion An odd movie, "Wild Bill". I reconciling the legend with the man (especially one who's on the downslope of life), there's plenty of backstory to fill in. And the way it bounces around between flashback and present day gives the movie a fairly schizophrenic vibe. On one hand, you kinda wish there was more running time to this just to handle all of the history - but on the other hand, the movie has its own pacing issues after the first 30 minutes or so. Maybe excitement just wasn't in the cards for this one.Putting aside the weakness of David Arquette, the movie boasts a solid cast (with Jeff Bridges as the standout). It's a decent western and the shootouts are classic Walter Hill.6/10

tieman64 "Wild Bill" was ripped to shreds by critics, ignored by audiences, and went on to become a huge box office failure. But with Jeff Bridges embraced as a bearded guru in the wake of "The Big Lebowski", the film has now become a huge cult favourite. And why not? It's a deliciously psychedelic western; an orgy of over the top violence and drunken wisecracks, the film would also give birth to the HBO series "Deadwood" decades later. Walter Hill spent his career making westerns and so by the time he directed "Wild Bill" he already knew the genre inside out. This is thus a film best appreciated by those familiar with and completely bored by the western genre. Those in search of something a little bit different. A little bit bizarre. The plot: Jeff Bridges plays Wild Bill Hickok, a half blind, always drunk, perpetually stoned lawman who lives out his remaining days at Deadwood, the infamous town in South Dakota. Deadwood is handled like George Lucas handled the town of Mos Eisley in "Star Wars". It's a "hive of scum and villainy", bar fights, gun battles and drunken brawls occurring left right and centre. The streets are muddy, opium dens are overbooked and a hellish rain beats down every night. "This town reminds me of something from the Bible," one character murmurs. "Which part?" Wild Bill asks. "The part right before God gets angry," comes the reply, summing up the tone of the film perfectly.Faced with "woman problems", weighed by his moustache and haunted by his past, Wild Bill mopes around Deadwood, unaware that a disgruntled young man is plotting to kill him. In typical western fashion, the film builds toward their final act face-off, but Hill subverts expectations at every turn. He's less interested in a mythological construction of Wild Bill than a trippy deconstruction, using flashbacks and a fragmented narrative to nosedive into both Bill's past and personal demons.But can we trust these flashbacks? Are these visions the truth or are they attempts by Bill to justify his violent past? In the film's present, Bill surrounds himself by those who blindly worship him. Calamity Jane, an old flame, spends the film lusting for Bill. Likewise Old Charlie, an Englishman who is always eager to defend Bill using charm and logic. Same story with California Joe, an old timer who is always spinning yarns and telling "tall tales" about Wild Bill. Bill, in other words, walks around with his own little propaganda machine, his circle of fawning friends all busy mythologising him.With Bill's real world an illusion, what exactly is there in the film's flashbacks which demonize him? He kills an Indian only because the Indian challenged him, he killed a man in a duel, but that jerk stole his watch. Likewise, he fights a guy in a wheelchair, but not before tying himself to a chair to make things fair. There's always the notion that these "flashbacks", these "traumas", are themselves part of the Wild Bill mythology. That perhaps it is the very falsity of these flashbacks, the very film, which is tormenting Bill.In any case, the film is primarily of interest because it allows us to watch Jeff Bridges chewing scenery. For all his wisecracks and violent flourishes, Bridges' Wild Bill is a fragile guy unable to relate to people, has no family, is going blind and is increasingly crushed as the film gets more and more claustrophobic. Hill's aesthetic strategy is such that you can feel the walls drawing in as the film progresses, the shadows, the mud, the rain, the walls themselves, closing inexorably in, until Bill finds himself at a cramped poker table, a gun behind his skull. But what's great is that Hill suggests that this "claustrophobia" is the result of the Wild Bill myth. That the "need" to constantly adhere to the public's perception of "who Wild Bill is", is ultimately what boxes Bill in and results in his demise. Trapped by his own lore, he sets about a chain of events which leads to his death. Ironically, while it is the "Wild Bill myth" which leads to a gunman seeking revenge on Bill, it is Bill's act of forgiveness toward this very man, his breaking of his dime-novel persona, that earns him a bullet in the brain.8/10 – Val Kilmer's performance as Doc Holiday in "Tombstone" was much lauded in the 90s, but Jeff Bridges' work here is equally awesome. Incidentally, Walter Hill directed the pilot episode of "Deadwood", this film serving as the template for the HBO series' tone and style. Thematically, the film does exactly what "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford" does, but arguably a bit better.Worth one viewing. See Hill's "The Warriors" and "The Long Riders".

bkoganbing In Wild Bill we get to see one of the best characterizations of the legendary western character. Jeff Bridges joins a pantheon of great players who've essayed the part of the marshal of Abilene, Kansas. Folks like William S. Hart, Gary Cooper, Roy Rogers, Guy Madison, Bill Elliott, Forrest Tucker, and Charles Bronson have all played Hickok with varying degrees of success.Some of these people have played Hickok more or less nobly as the script and their screen persona permitted. Someone like Roy Rogers you know without seeing the film had Hickok be a straight arrow. The real Wild Bill was someone who was as tough as he had to be to enforce law and order in a wild and woolly town like Abilene, Kansas circa 1870-1871 when Hickok kept the peace there.Among those other actors who played Hickok also includes Jeff's father Lloyd Bridges who did it in an hour television drama on the Great Adventure series. I saw that years ago and I wish I could remember more of it so I could compare father and son. The part I best recall is the famous story of Hickok accidentally shooting his own deputy who made the fatal mistake of coming up behind him too quietly and after he'd just shot one of Texas's rowdier cowboys. It's part of the Hickok legend and shown here as well.Of course the manner of Hickok's death has also entered into folklore with wide and varying accounts of the kind of man Hickok's killer Jack McCall was. He was probably closer to the sneaky rat that Cecil B. DeMille had Porter Hall play him as in The Plainsman. Here he's shown as a drunk and scared kid played by David Arquette much in the same manner as Bob Ford was played by Casey Affleck last year. Arquette does well in the role.Ellen Barkin is cast as Calamity Jane and while she's as tough as the famous frontierswoman, she's way too good looking. Too bad Louis B. Mayer never thought of using Marie Dressler for the part back in the day. Even she was a little too femme for the part.The film is done in Citizen Kane style, narrated by John Hurt who is a close friend of Hickok in the story. It's a pretty good western, coming out when those are few and far between.