Highly Overrated But Still Good

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Young Guns is a classic western adventure told through the lens of a big '80s action flick, cheesy guitar rock soundtrack and all. As a guy who loves "movie-moments", it's perfect. (Talking to the guy in the bar who wants to kill Billy the Kid. Discovering the traitor in the group. Shooting dude in the bathroom. The final standoff. Peyote.) Other than Sutherland's blandness and Sheen's accent, the performances are characters are a great hang.

Released in 1988 and directed by Christopher Cain, "Young Guns" stars Emilio Estevez as Billy the Kid, an orphaned teen taken in by English merchant John Tunstall (Terrence Stamp) who mentors him and several other 'young guns' – Richard 'Dick' Brewer (Charlie Sheen), Doc Scurlock (Keifer Sutherland), Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), Dirty Steve Stephens (Dermot Malroney) and Charles 'Charley' Bowdre (Casey Siemaszko). When savage injustice strikes, the youths team-up as deputies, but their hunger for justice takes them beyond the law wherein they must be hunted as an outlaw gang. Jack Palance, Brian Keith and Patrick Wayne are also on hand.This is an excellent "modern" Western that sticks pretty close to history. The relatively lame 80's pop rock score wasn't as bad or prevalent as I remembered and, besides, it's mixed with some more traditional Western music, usually "live" stuff performed in the scenes, like banjo, guitar, etc. The movie is realistic with an amazing true-life story brought to action-packed life by a great cast with excellent performances and potent dramatic scenes (like, for instance, Chavez's notable venting sequence).Be sure to catch the excellent 30-minute documentary on the real-life Billy the Kid on the DVD for comparison to the events in "Young Guns" and the sequel.Speaking of which, 1990's "Young Guns II" is almost as good and is mandatory because it shows the rest of the story – the hiring of Pat Garrett to chase down the gang and put an end to it by taking Billy out. It also sticks pretty close to history, but takes some understandable licenses (e.g. Pat Garrett was never a member of Billy's gang).The film runs 107 minutes and was shot in New Mexico and Old Tucson, Arizona.GRADE: A-

William H. 'Billy the Kid' Bonney (Emilio Estevez) has trouble with the law. John Tunstall (Terence Stamp) takes him in just as he has done with several other young men. They call themselves Regulators. One day, Tunstall is killed by his competitor rancher Murphy (Jack Palance)'s men. Sheriff reluctantly deputizes the Regulators to bring the murderers to justice. However, that's just the start of an all out war.This is the best Brat Pack western. Emilio Estevez goes nuts in this movie. His manic laugh makes this movie. Oddly, Charlie Sheen plays the reasonable leader of the group. Kiefer Sutherland falls for Murphy's china doll Yen Sun. Lou Diamond Phillips is the Indian. Casey Siemaszko and Dermot Mulroney round out the Regulator crew. History be damn. This is fictional. Although there are some famous names for the characters. This is just a bunch of young guns having fun playing cowboys.

and the result was this abomination of a movie and butchering of history. Anyone who doesn't think this movie is drek should watch a real western, "The Unforgiven" or "Tombstone" or even "The Searchers" with John Wayne. This movie is just Charlie and Emilio and their buddies getting paid to ride horses, wear cool clothes, and play with guns.Avoid it like the plague, along with the sequel (why???) and their other terrible outing, "The Three Musketeers" otherwise known as; the Brat Pack wanted to wear more cool costumes, play with swords and get paid for it. They're even less believable as Musketeers than they are as gunfighters.