Wyatt Earp

Wyatt Earp starring Kevin Costner came out in 1994 to my astonishment. I recently found it on Warner Brothers DVD at a supermarket, a 21 year-old movie! I've watched it twice now just this month; I believe it is one of the best Western  films ever made! This version of the famous lawman and the shoot out of the OK Corral in Tombstone surpasses the Kirk Douglass-Burt Lancaster 1956 one or the Kurt Russell-Val Kilmer 1993 show, because I feel Kevin Costner with director Lawrence Kasdan really bring out the history of the period in a comprehensive way-the story focuses on the Earp family, his brothers Virgil, Morgan, James and Warren. Gene Hackman plays their father in the beginning who taught them the value of blood relatives, the evil in the world and the law. Bill Pullman is Ed Masterson, first hired on by Wyatt as a buffalo skinner with his brother Bat-both later become deputies in Dodge City. Wyatt meets Doc Holliday, portrayed by Dennis Quaid with humor and loyal perseverance. The film unlike most of this genre moves meticulously with the characters and personalities, rather than the scenery. For just over three hours it held my interest with the sad death of his young wife in Missouri, Wyatt swearing off liquor for coffee & cigars, faro card games, enforcement of gun rules in town, the love scene with Josie, the murder of Morgan on the pool table, the four man march to the Corral and the payback in the Tucson train yard at night. There's insight to life as well: some men are affable or they're deliberate. When Mattie, Wyatt's live-in prostitute girlfriend tries to kill herself, Doc pours Wyatt a drink while musing about the merits of the other side-Doc suffering from tuberculosis. If Wyatt is going to break his fast, then Doc proposes he do it with a friend. Am I off the hook Wyatt asks, referring to Mattie for Josie? Doc replies" there's no hook, only what we do." Wyatt has his shot. I just can't believe the critics panned this movie. Maybe for some it's too slow or long, but Costner pulled it off and carried it through. This film stands out among Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, Tom Selleck-Sam Elliot Louis L'Amour series, John Wayne and Clint Eastwood productions. Wyatt Earp is one of my favorites!