Wyatt Earp (1994)

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.

I always find it fun when a boring movie's backstory is juicy; it's like a consolation prize! So here's the deal with Wyatt Earp: Kevin Costner was going to star in Tombstone, but he split off from the project and co-produced Wyatt Earp with Lawrence Kasdan. He'd wanted the movie to be all about Wyatt, so hopefully he was happy with his own version. The ironic revenge of Tombstone? It was released six months earlier and made more money at the box office.Now, to the movie. It's over three hours, which is an improvement over the 6-hour miniseries it was originally intended to be! But it's still really long, and not in a good way. Some movies can get away with a slow pace, and this just isn't one of them. The cure for such terrible boredom would have been a title character so wonderful and easy to root for that the audience doesn't mind the slowness. In this version, Wyatt just isn't likable. He's violent, vengeful, selfish, loses his temper constantly, and is a womanizer who doesn't have any respect for women. I don't usually have an issue with that, especially if it's during a time period when respect for women is hard to find anyway, but the "charm" Wyatt uses during his romantic interactions is more offensive than appealing. I tried, but it was pretty impossible to root for Kevin Costner in this movie, and if you're not rooting for the hero, you've got a very long three hours in store for you.My favorite version of this story is 1957's Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. But if you like modern westerns and Kevin Costner, watch Open Range. It's similar and much, much better.

The most famous lawmaker from the old west is Wyatt Earp (1848 – 1929), largely because he survived and actually went to work for Hollywood in his old age during the silent era, hob knobbing with directors John Ford and Raoul Walsh, and actors William Hart, Tom Mix, and Harry Carey. Some say he even had an influence on a young John Wayne.Earp was first featured in the 1923 "Wild Bill Hickok" and Earp himself worked behind the scenes with his buddy William Hart (who played Hickok). He appeared again in "Frontier Marshall" (1934) and John Ford produced the first notable film about Earp, called "My Darling Clementine" (1946).The "Wyatt Earp" TV series (1955 – 61) gave birth to the 1957 film "Gunfight at OK Corral". John Sturges directed this film and re- visited the era with "Hour of the Gun" (1967). In the 1990s, "Tombstone" (1993) and "Wyatt Earp" (1994) gave us more intense portraits. In Tombstone, we have Kurt Russell (Earp), Val Kilmer (Doc) and Stephen Lang (Ike Clanton) with Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton as the Earp brothers, Powers Boothe as an unredeemable Curly Bill Brocius and Michael Biehn as the deadly Johnny Ringo.Actors who played Earp include Henry Fonda ("My Darling Clementine"), Hugh O'Brien ("Wyatt Earp" TV series), Burt Lancaster ("Gunfight at OK Corral"), James Garner ("Hour of the Gun"), and Kurt Russell ("Tombstone"). For my tastes, the best Earp was Hugh O'Brien on the TV series, followed by Kurt Russell ("Tombstone") whom I think was the more realistic Earp.Actors who played Doc Holiday include Victor Mature who played a wonderful coughing Doc Holiday ("My Darling Clementine") as does Dennis Quaid in this film. Val Kilmer ("Tombstone"), Kirk Douglas ("Gunfight at OK Corral"), Jason Robards ("Hour of the Gun"), and Douglas Fowley ("Wyatt Earp" TV series) also played Doc. Val Kilmer is my favorite Doc Holiday, though I am partial to TV's Douglas Fawley.Old Man Clanton was played savagely by Walter Brennan ("My Darling Clementine") but otherwise rarely shown. For villains, no one was as despicable as Walter Brennan ("My Darling Clementine") although Powers Boothe ("Tombstone") came close and I was also fond of Michael Biehn ("Tombstone").Ike Clanton has been played by Robert Ryan ("Hour of the Gun"), Lyle Bettger ("Gunfight at OK Corral"), and Stephen Lang ("Tombstone")Billy Clanton was played by John Ireland ("My Darling Clementine"), Dennis Hopper ("Gunfight at OK Corral"), and Thomas Haden Church ("Tombstone"). Hopper's cowardly Clanton is the most memorable.The Brothers Earp have been played by Ward Bond and Tim Holt ("My Darling Clementine"), DeForest Kelley and Martin Milner ("Gunfight at OK Corral")Johnny Ringo has only occasionally been featured in films dealing with Wyatt Earp. He appeared in "Gunfight at OK Corral" by John Ireland and in "Tombstone" by Michael Biehn.Curly Bill Brocius has only occasionally been featured, by Jon Voight ("Hour of the Gun") and Powers Boothe in "Tombstone". Boothe is the stand-out.With this as background, how does 1994's "Wyatt Earp" stand up? Pretty poorly. "Wyatt Earp" had Kevin Costner (Earp), Dennis Quaid (Doc), and Jeff Fahey (Ike Clanton) along with a host of women who played the Earp's extended family. We even had Gene Hackman in a cameo as the father. It is a seemingly never-ending tale about Wyatt's entire life, with very little action and almost no character development among the critical players like Ike Clanton, Curly Bill, and Johhny Ringo. As such, it's nearly impossible to understand what is happening. (FWIW – the only film to make an attempt to explain the behind the scenes happenings is "Tombstone").This isn't the worst Wyatt Earp film. That honor goes to "Hour of the Gun". But it is a colossal waste of talent. The only memorable scene is at the very end of the film.

The movie Tombstone was released a few months earlier, it was shorter and more action packed. It was also a better film.Wyatt Earp clocking in at over three hours is too long. It marked the beginning of Costner's decline at the box office. The audience frankly had enough of his epic and half baked films.Wyatt Earp wants to be a thoughtful ambitious biopic. It emerges as dull, bloated, uneven and about as truthful as many other pictures of this famous lawman with added overbearing score by James Newton Howard.Kevin Costner looks uneasy playing the younger Wyatt as an overgrown boy scout getting daily lectures on the importance of family by dad, Gene Hackman.After the sudden death of his first wife, what gradually emerges is a cold hard man who enforces the law his way, that way being by the barrel of the gun with his brothers as fellow enforcers.Director Lawrence Kasdan is shackled by Costner wanting to be the star of the show. The actors playing the brothers Earp do not get much of a look in as they are in the shadows of Costner, their wives come across more forcefully as they stand up to Wyatt for putting their husbands in danger. Rightly so, they all get shot and a few of them die.Even Dennis Quaid who lost weight to play Doc Holliday is underused and to me was largely a cameo. I can see why Val Kilmer overshadowed him in the rival Tombstone.The film is simply not compelling enough.

Wyatt Earp is film maker Lawrence Kasdan's much overlooked and under-appreciated western epic. Some folks will scoff at the film not being historically accurate, which is a good point. However, at the end of the day Wyatt Earp is still a very good movie. It is certainly well made, the acting is good and has an engaging story of one of the most famous lawmen in the American west. Kevin Costner did a great job here as Wyatt Earp delivering a very good and believable well rounded performance. This project is more of a dramatic piece than an action vehicle, however there is plenty of great action as well. The pacing of the film is fairly quick. While Wyatt Earp clocks in at around 3 hours, it is never boring or self indulgent on the part of the director. Lawrence Kasdan does a hell of a job telling the story and balances the tone of light and dark very well. The film looks great and has an astounding support cast that includes Dennis Quaid, Gene Hackman, Michael Madsen, Tom Sizemore, Bill Pullman, Mark Harmon, Jeff Fahey and more. I think that the success of Tombstone(also a great film by the way) killed the chance of this project to succeed considering they were released at around the same period and Tombstone came first. That being said, it made audiences choose one film or another, which is a shame because both movies are awesome and have different approaches to the subject matter. I am glad that Tombstone gets a lot of props, but this movie is great also and deserves respect as well.