Wild Bill **** (1995, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Barkin, John Hurt, Diane Lane, Bruce Dern, David Arquette, Christina Applegate, Keith Carradine) – Classic Movie Review 3740

This high, wide and handsome, great big, expensive 1995 Western about gun-toting lawman Wild Bill Hickok from tough-guy writer-director Walter Hill, the maker of 48 Hrs. (1982), is a huge treat for action and Wild West fans.

An ideally cast Jeff Bridges is splendid as James Butler Hickok, who in this dark, moody, introspective version of the tale, is haunted by his past and reputation, and is loved by a woman he cannot love in return – Calamity Jane (Ellen Barkin).

Worse still, young Jack McCall (David Arquette) has sworn to kill Bill, blaming him for abandoning his mother and destroying her life. Bill’s ghosts, his failing eyesight, and his fondness for opium all threaten to make McCall’s task easier.

Wild Bill is a beautiful-looking, realistic film, made on location at Los Angeles National Forest, California, and Big Sky Ranch, Montana. It is also, unfortunately, a wordy film, based, rather too literally at times, on Thomas Babe’s play Fathers and Sons, as well as a book by Pete Dexter.

Also in the star cast are John Hurt, Diane Lane, Keith Carradine as Buffalo Bill Cody, Bruce Dern, James Gammon, Marjoe Gortner, James Remar and Christina Applegate.

Bridges says: ‘I grew a moustache and gained weight to reach the character. As long as Haagen Dazs exists I have no trouble gaining weight. It’s the losing it that becomes more difficult every time.’

A legend never dies, maybe, but the movie did. Costing $30million, it took only $2million  at the US box office.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3740

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