What is there to say about a perfect movie?

Young Guns was easily my favorite movie for about five years. Seeing it again in 2011, after not having watched it in probably a decade, caused me to ask myself a few questions. The first was, “How is it that I know every line in this movie word for word, but I can’t name half of the presidents of the United States or half of the US state capitals?” The second was, “How was this movie my favorite movie when it came out in 1988 if I wasn’t allowed to see rated R movies until I was sixteen?” I was more perplexed in figuring out the answer to the second question than I was in the first. The answer to the first one was easy. I knew every line of the movie word for word because I’ve watched it over 100 times. Looking at my current list of movies (yes, I have a directory ranking every movie I’ve ever seen), I see that Young Guns is still in the Top 25 and thus receives a rating of A+. The next time I update this list, I will move Young Guns closer to the Top 10. It’s a fantastic movie. If I saw it today for the first time, I doubt I would evaluate it as relatively high, but I can’t push away all of the memories this most recent viewing evoked.

Young Guns is one of many movies about the legendary William H. Bonney (aka Billy the Kid). Emilio Estevez (The Mighty Ducks, Stakeout) stars as the lead character. Regardless of your feelings about the movie, you’d be hard-pressed to find somebody who doesn’t believe that this was the role Estevez was born to play. He nails the role perfectly. Estevez looks like a mastermind one minute and a madman the next. He can go from jovial to vengeful at the flick of a switch. He plays Billy the Kid as an insecure renegade and a man who is loyal to the core. Even Estevez’s laugh is spot on. Though this movie featured a who’s who of young Hollywood stars, it is Estevez that you would think would be the one who would go on to have the most prominent future. That certainly was not the case. Dick (Charlie Sheen – Platoon, Wall Street), Doc (Keifer Sutherland – television’s 24, Flatliners), and Dirty Steve (Dermot Mulroney – My Best Friend’s Wedding, Must Love Dogs) went on to have more impactful careers. Meanwhile, Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips – Labamba, Stand and Deliver) has had a career that paralleled Estevez’s.

There is much folklore surrounding Billy the Kid. This version portrays him as a petty thief whom British ranch owner John Tunstall (Terence Stamp – Billy Budd, The Collector) takes in. Tunstall is a gentle and respected man known for taking in young men who have gotten themselves in a little bit of trouble with the law and helping them turn their lives around by making them regulators. Tunstall’s regulators allow him to watch over his large ranch during the day. At night, Tunstall teaches the young men how to read and to better themselves as human beings. However, a corrupt businessman named Lawrence Murphy (Jack Palance – City Slickers, Shane) sees Tunstall as an obstacle. And with connections all over the country, he’s virtually untouchable and unstoppable. When Murphy’s men murder Tunstall, Billy and the other Regulators are deputized and told to serve warrants to those responsible for the killing.

The Regulators’ leader isn’t Billy, but Dick, the senior-most member of Tunstall’s current bunch. Billy’s values, priorities, and justice ideas are very different from Dick’s. When the Regulators isolate one of the men associated with the murders, Dick tells Billy to go in alone to serve the warrant and bring the man out. When Billy kills the man instead, each of the seven Regulators has a bounty placed on his head, and the group of men becomes the most wanted men in the country. With Murphy having men in all parts of the country, there is no safe place for the men to go. No one is willing to help the young men as they all fear the repercussions if they are discovered aiding and abetting. Dick and Billy continue to clash, further dividing the group. We know there is no going back when the two men pull their guns on one another.

And so the movie becomes a game of cat and mouse, one of the Regulators trying to outrun men coming from them at all angles. And despite this movie clocking in at a brisk 1 hour and 47 minutes, we get to know each character. Sure, Billy is the featured man, but we know an equal amount, if not more, about the history and the thinking of each of the other men in the group. We become emotionally invested in each of these characters and their relationships with one another. The last 20 minutes of the movie is as exciting of a standoff as you’ll ever see on film. Director Christopher Cain’s (The Stone Boy, The Principal) vision for this scene alone was terrific. There is no rush in the standoff. Cain keeps us sitting on the edge of our seats for more than 20 minutes while we await each character’s fate.

Young Guns was the first western that I ever saw and is still, by far, my favorite. I love everything about this movie. The directing is superb, the acting is top-notch, and the score is beautiful. Cain aimed to show 1878 New Mexico as a lawless land with men who thought they were bigger than life and above the law. I admit I’m biased when giving this movie a perfect score, but there are only a handful of films that have left me wanting more (and no, I don’t mean Young Guns II, which was a disaster) or looking forward to when I can see the movie again.

Plot 10/10
Character Development 10/10
Character Chemistry 10/10
Acting 10/10
Screenplay 10/10
Directing  10/10
Cinematography 10/10
Sound 10/10
Hook and Reel 10/10
Universal Relevance 10/10
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