After just watching My Darling Clementine, it is hard not to compare it to this film. While Clementine is subtle, poetic and sublime, this is combustible - a freight train pulling its whistle - louder, more violent, strident - and yet fairly entertaining. It is in tune with its time. From the opening scene that seems pointless other than establishing how evil the Cowboy gang is as they slaughter a group of men, it creates a mood, a sense of foreboding in which a confrontation with the Earp brothers is inevitable. Violence always seems like a second away, one wrong twitch away. When the bloodletting comes it is almost a relief like popping a boil. Surprisingly, it is historically in the neighborhood but loaded with much more death and venality. 


At two hours it stretches its good-will a bit - with more climaxes than a phony prostitute - the killing just goes on and on. In between the killing the Earps and Doc Holliday all have wives or girlfriends in which they are determined to find domesticity with - it feels contrived and unnecessary. Wyatt also falls in love with another woman that should have been in another movie - she is a 19th century emancipated woman. It is as if the director George Cosmatos felt the film needed a touch of femininity among the killing, the gambling, the macho posturing but it really didn't. This is Heroic Bloodshed Western style.


It has a group of terrific actors - all doing a fine job. Kurt Russell is Wyatt - a terse reluctant gunfighter who gets pulled in. His brothers are Sam Elliot (who could be more authentic) and Bill Paxton. As Holliday in a tour de force is Val Kilmer as his performance balances on the edge of being absurdly modernistic and cobra like fascinating. He steals every scene he is in. Among the Cowboys there is Powers Booth as Curly Bill Brocius  and Michael Biehn as Johnny Ringo - both historical figures. Holliday says of Ringo when Earp asks him what does he need. Revenge. For what? For being born. Among the women are Dana Delany and Joanna Pacula, To top it off there is a cameo from Charlton Heston.


The Earps come to town looking to become rich. Retired from the law business. They open a gambling establishment. The Cowboys keep causing trouble - there are over 30 of them - and Virgil finally has enough and signs up to be the law (true in fact - he was the law, not Wyatt). His brother Morgan joins him - Wyatt wants nothing to do with it but eventually he has no choice. The shootout at the OK Corral occurs about halfway through the film. After tragedy hits home, Wyatt and Doc go on a revenge tour - or retribution as Doc puts it - and they track them down and kill them all. It almost becomes a montage of violence and blood.

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