Overlooked Gem

Rating: 8/10 (23 July 2003)

I rented Tombstone on DVD the other night because Roger Ebert had said something about it in his Movie Answer Man column. I had missed it at the theater, as I suspect most of America did. This is a pretty dang good western. The story of the shootout at the OK Corral has been told in countless films (perhaps partly because Wyatt Earp himself lived in Hollywood during the early years of the film industry -- two of his pall bearers were Tom Mix and William S. Hart) but never quite like this. Firstly, this film uses the shootout as the beginning of the story, whereas all the other films used it as the end of the story. Also, Doc Holliday is on the same side as the Earps throughout and is portrayed (by a pale, sweaty and shaky Val Kilmer) as an educated Southern gentleman who, after being diagnosed with tuberculosis, decides to turn his remaining days into an orgy of his three favorite pursuits: Drinking, Gambling, and Killing. The movie even intimates that he wants very badly to be put out of his misery in a gunfight, rather than die the slow miserable death imposed on him by his disease.

Kurt Russell has never been more kickass commanding as he is playing Wyatt Earp. In a scene early on -- perhaps the most fun in the movie -- he has a confrontation with Billy Bob Thornton. Russell's steely glare and resolute bitch-slapping of Thornton establish Earp as a man to be reckoned with. I never knew Russell had it in him. The movie itself looks great. Lots of period detail and spectacular scenery. The strong supporting cast includes Sam Elliott, Michael Biehn, Powers Boothe, Dana Delany, Terry O'Quinn, Bill Pullman, and Jason Priestley. Especially good is Stephen Lang as Ike Clanton, who shows us equal amounts of bravado and cowardice and sweats almost as much as Doc Holliday, but out of fear, not fever.
Unforgiven was a better movie, but Tombstone is more fun. 8/10