Young Guns came out in the 1980’s and I enjoyed the film enough to have it in my movie collection for several years and no one has ever written about it before on this site. I thought it a very well-done and entertaining movie, shot in the traditional brown/black & white western style. The plot and action were also traditional.
The story begins with a group of runaway bad boy derelicts, living on a ranch together, all misfits and with legal troubles. Some for theft, murder; that sort of thing. Earl John Turnstil (Terence Stamp) insists that all will able to read and have each has responsibilities on the ranch. One day, Murphy (Jack Palance), one of the town’s prominent bad guys comes along and shoots Turnstil and the boys vow revenge upon Murphy and his henchmen. The boys are each deputized and given bagdes.
From that point on, they call themselves ’’The Regulators’’: William H Bonney-’’Billy the Kid’’ (Emilio Estevez), Chavez Y Chavez (Lou Diamond Phillips), Charlie Bowdre- ’’The Pugilist’’(Casey Slemszko), Dick Brewer (Charlie Sheen), ’’Dirty Steve’’ Stephans (Dermot Mulroney), & Doc Scurlock (Kiefer Sutherland).
Memorable scenes were throughout:
One evening, the gang drinks peioti mushroom tea. Chavez is a Navajo Indian, deeply pained by his tribe’s slaughter and his own life, in war paint, his weapon a knife. Doc is the poet, off on his own tripping about his love for his little butterfly, the Chinese girl who is enslaved by Murphy. The slurring dialogue, the excellent cinematography and the depiction of deach person’s stuporous experience. Entertaining and enlightening AND I am surprized that no ’’accident’s’’ occurred.
Also well done was the final shoot out at Alex McSween’s home (Turnstil’s attorney, played by Terry O’Quinn). The gang, less Dick who was previously killed in an ambush, is holed up inside of McSween’s house with his wife, Susan. Outside are Murphy’s men and it looks quite hopeless for the Regulators. When it gets dark, the shotting stops. In the morning a whole troop is outside and they have another shootout followed by a fire. They have no choice but to come on out. But not with their hands up...No! They come out shooting.
It would not be fair to tell you who survives and who doesn’t. I will say one thing, Billy the Kid is one tough giggling guy, who does manage to make it out alive, despite his several bullets through the chest. After all, he has to stay alive long enough for Young Guns II and his famous line: ’’I’ll make you famous.’’