Superb Telling of the Wyatt Earp Saga

Rating: 9/10 (23 January 2002)

"Tombstone" deals with the adventures of Wyatt Earp and his brothers covering a two and one half year period. It starts with Wyatt (Kurt Russell) and his two brothers (Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton) arriving in Tombstone to seek their fortune. Subsequent events put badges back on the Earps and lead to the infamous gunfight at the OK Corral. The last third of the film deals with Wyatt's revenge on the baddies, known as "The Cowboys".
Director George P. Cosmatos gives us a visually stunning film. From the spectacular sunsets/sunrises to the real lightning flashes and authentic settings and costumes. Most of the male actors are hidden under real beards and handle bar moustaches they grew which were common at the time of the story.
The performances are excellent all around. Russell makes an excellent Wyatt. The relationship between Wyatt his brothers and Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer) are developed in detail. Kilmer plays Holiday as a former southern aristocrat complete with accent and mannerisms. Joanna Pacula plays his girlfriend. Dana Wheeler-Nicholson is good as Wyatt's drug addicted first wife and Dana Delaney looks stunning as the "other woman".
Heading up the villains are Powers Boothe as Curly Bill, Michael Biehn as Ringo and Stephen Lang and Thomas Haden Church as the Clantons. Wyatt Earp's grandson Wyatt Earp III plays Billy Claiborne. Veteran western performer Harry Carey Jr. does a nice turn as the town marshal and Buck Taylor (of "Gunsmoke" fame) plays one of Wyatt's marshals. Charlton Heston puts in a cameo as a rancher and look for Billy Bob Thornton as a saloon bully early in the film.
"Tombstone" ranks in my opinion, as the best and most accurate version of the Wyatt Earp saga ever filmed. Try and catch the director's cut (at 134 minutes) which restores many of the cut sequences from the original version and serves to provide further clarification to the development of the characters and their relationships with one another.